Crypto bill gathers dust; govt leaves on market forces to sensitise people
Photo credit Twitter @Schuldensuehner
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, November 9: At a time when the cryptocurrency exchanges were giving full-page advertisements in the leading dailies, the Central government woke up with alarm to take up the matter in the Union Cabinet meeting and decided to regulate the trade of the coins in the virtual space. At that time the bitcoin had broken the $60,000 ceiling.
Narendra Modi-led NDA government thought that there is an easy money to be made out by regulating the cryptocurrency market, as the investors were digging goldmines in a short span of time, as innumerable coins flooded the exchanges along with claims that they would launch themselves on the Bitcoin’s magical journey
More than a year later, Bitcoin is below $20,000, in fact it has touched $18000, while some of the fancied coins have vanished the investments of the people. The billionaire Elon Musk sought to make people dream of a coin-based trading for goods in the world, as he bought and dumped Bitcoins and its siblings, enticing millions of the people across the world to gamble their savings in coins with exchanges which mushroomed.
The government had readied the bill to regulate the cryptocurrencies, but the draft which had been discussed among the officials is now gathering dust. Sources said that the official who had worked on drafting the bill has since been transferred to another ministry where he has been assigned an ambitious task, which is the flagship agenda of the Modi government.
“There is nothing on the cryptocurrency bill front. The market forces have taken care of the most of the concerns of the government. The investments in the coins have been wiped out, and the people have burnt their fingers. The newspaper advertisements have also disappeared. The investigating agencies have also taken action against a few of the crypto exchanges,” said a senior official.
Ethereum, another fancied cryptocurrency, tanked over eight per cent on Wednesday, while it has been down by over 74 per cent in the last one year. Dogecoin, another highly speculated cryptocurrency, tanked by over 69 per cent in the last one year, while it was down by five per cent on Wednesday. Shiba Inu is also down by over 23 per cent in the last one week. Bitcoin too is down by 73 per cent in the last one year.
The global rout of the cryptocurrencies came on the back of a coordinated actions by several countries, which included ban on them by China, while concerns have also been raised on excessive electricity consumed by the miners of the cryptocurrencies, who in recent years are reported to have made a big base out of Iran.
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