Supreme Court order raises hope for cryptocurrency geeks

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) endorsing their stand against curbs put in place by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), that effectively outlawed virtual currencies in India, on Wednesday only confirms that cryptocurrencies can no longer be dismissed as just a fad.

With a market capitalisation of nearly $300 billion, cryptocurrency, in fact, is touted as the future of digital finance.

According to experts, the ruling is an opportunity for businesses in India to push against stricter rules that may be coming their way from the unconvinced government, even as optimists see the move potentially raising hope for the likes of Facebook Inc’s Libra cryptocurrency.

“The verdict tells us that reluctance to regulate something cannot be the reason enough to stifle or kill a full industry, and for that matter, even a single entity. The innovative industry now gets an equal opportunity to exist and grow as the apex court outright shot down a strong policy step by RBI and gave a thumbs-up to the crypto exchanges and crypto as an asset class,” explained Manish Kumar, co-founder of GREX, a start-up that operates an online stock exchange-like facility for unlisted start-ups. In 2018, the central bank had placed a ban on banks and financial institutions from dealing with virtual currencies like bitcoins and others.

As an effect, domestic exchanges allowed buying and selling of cryptocurrencies but transactions had to be routed through an intermediary, typically referred to as a P2P payment application.

The Supreme Court ruling, however, opens up the gateway for exchanges to get back to dealing with banking channels and revive their business of facilitating exchange of virtual currency.