Regulation of the India's cryptocurrency market is still in a gray zone as the state's watchdogs including the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Reserve Bank of India and the Ministry of Finance still have no clear and common position on how to regulate the market.
In an interview with Forkast, Head of Government & Regulatory Affairs for Asia Pacific at Ripple, Sagar Sarbhai, says for a country like India, a retail CBDC "may not be that feasible" as there are many other policy angles related to that.
"But potentially a wholesale CBDC where the central bank issues tokens to the regulated banks, that could be a possible use case as a complement or a substitute to the already existing system within India," Sarbhai added.
Sarbhai highlights India's lawmakers should stop criticizing cryptocurrencies and look at this picture more holistically and understand the positive use cases of virtual assets.
Managing Director of South Asia and EMEA at Ripple, Navin Gupta, believes that India is "under-living its potential" as it is trying to ban technologies that could potentially solve "decade-old problems."
"And we are waiting for this regulatory clarity to then introduce the solution into India. I think there are many more like us. For us and all the others, investment is not an issue, but the key issue is without the clear regulatory signals, we can’t move ahead," Gupta added.
Previously iHodl reported that the Indian Ministry of Finance proposed a new ban on cryptos in the country.
The proposal, drafted by the Ministry of Finance, will first be sent to the Union Council of Ministers and later to the Parliament for final review.
The move comes just three months after the country's Supreme Court overturned central bank's two-year-old ban, which prohibited banks from offering their services to individuals or companies related to cryptocurrencies.
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