The second coming: RBI’s move on crypto assets dubbed ‘demonetisation-2’

In one fell swoop, the RBI has cut the oxygen supply of cryptocurrency exchanges in India. While most exchanges struggle to breathe, some see a business opportunity

In an arbitrary decision, RBI has excluded cryptocurrency exchanges from India’s payments network

The move has impacted over two dozen exchanges and about 5 million Indians who have investments in cryptocurrencies

Exchanges are not willing to go down without a fight and are clutching at as many straws as they can

New business models and ways to circumvent the RBI’s directive are now being explored

“We haven’t received a notice from our banks; we don’t know whether we have one week or three months.”

Shubham Yadav, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Coindelta, is talking about the grave uncertainty that is his future. On Friday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a circular which notes the provisions of law under which it can prohibit banks and financial institutions from dealing with cryptocurrency businesses. Yadav, and others like him, are now planning ahead.

“We plan to move our office outside of India and from there we will operate in the country.

AUTHOR

Sidhartha Shukla

In his earlier stint at Moneycontrol, the website owned by the Network18 group, Sid wrote on cryptocurrencies, cybersecurity, business, and finance. Born in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, Sid has spent most of his life in Jalandhar, Punjab. He has a BSc in Mathematics from St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Sid is a comic book nerd and a big fan of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Brian Azzarello. He can be reached at sidhartha at the rate the-ken.com

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