In the past couple of months, we have come across words like cryptocurrencies and bitcoins. Invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, the popularity of Bitcoins has grown majorly over the past few years. The talks about Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies being illegal has sparked and heightened the controversies surrounding it. Bitcoins could have become an alternate monetary system, but not anymore, as the Reserve Bank of India earlier this year clamped down on bitcoins and outlawed dealing with virtual currencies, both cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets. This move was taken because of the concerns about money laundering, consumer protection, and market integrity. On the backdrop of this event, Zebpay, India’s first and most trusted and secured exchange for cryptocurrency, close down its business in India. As a result, the cryptocurrency market has seen very low transactions and the government’s stance on the utilization of
blockchain technology failed to have any impact on P2P transactions.Therefore, it is evident that the ban will affect the exposure of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum and will hamper the global growth of cryptocurrencies. The banks have advised the customers to abstain using credit cards to deal with cryptocurrency.
The future of Bitcoins might remain constricted to exchange with the number of bitcoins globally is twenty-one million and only four million bitcoins left to be mined. The main reason behind the precariousness of Bitcoin is due to the negativity and uncertainty surrounding it due to the lack of tangibility in bitcoins. Another factor which is suggesting a dark future for bitcoins is a report which says that nearly $4 million worth of bitcoins is lost for good. According to the research, 3.79 million bitcoins are already lost forever. This implies that trading in bitcoins is fraught with danger and caution should be applied while dealing with them.
While it will be immature to conclude that this marks the end of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in India, the technology will only survive if the government intervenes and regulates policies concerning cryptocurrencies. Experts predict that the government will regulate Bitcoins in phases. India’s Bitcoin industry has for long tried to popularize bitcoins with strategies like security checks, requesting identification from users, such as government-verified address proofs, Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) and Aadhaar IDs, and also checking banking details. There is also an association of private bitcoin companies known as Digital Assets and Blockchain Foundation (BFI), to make people aware of the benefits of using Bitcoins. If the government intervenes and regulates Bitcoins it will definitely encourage such associations.
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