India Working With G20 Members to Create SOP for Cryptocurrencies: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

On a query posed over crypto mining in Lok Sabha, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said under India's Presidency, G20 members are working together to bring a collective standard operating procedure on it.

While replying to a query from DMK MP T Sumathy, the Finance Minister said, "At the moment, they (cryptocurrencies) are largely unregulated in India; whether it is mining or the asset or whether it is the transaction, we recognise that it is completely driven by technology and a standalone country's effort to control and regulate is not going to be effective." 

After saying that China is tracking down crypto miners, India could be an alternate destination if regulation is certain and infra is provided, the member of Parliament asked how the government was planning to regulate crypto mining in India.

Sitharaman also added, "There is an evolving consensus and that's why we are raising this issue in the G20 and having a detailed discussion over the issue so that a standard operating procedure emerges after the discussions in the G20, and so that there is a coherent, comprehensive and all-country-working-together kind of approach in bringing some regulations, whether it is mining or transacting and all these would have been looked into with comprehension."

On Saturday, during a joint conference of the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India, Union Finance Minister said that crypto is 99 percent technology. It is "under discussion with G20 nations," if all countries could achieve a standard operating procedure that will be effective while following a regulatory framework, she added.

Addressing a press meet after addressing the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the customary post-Budget meeting on Saturday, the Finance Minister said, "If regulation has to happen, then a different country alone cannot do anything. We are talking to all countries about whether we will be able to make any standard operating procedure. So that if everyone follows that path and we create a regulatory framework, will we be able to remain effective? All this is a topic in discussion. Discussions on this subject with the G20 countries are on."