The concept of cryptocurrency does not believe in any particular geography or jurisdiction

Rameesh Kailasam, CEO, India Tech 

How has the government responded to the white paper you’ve authored through your industry body and think tanks on cryptocurrency regulations?

I would say it has been a fairly positive response because till that white paper was written, I think the narrative was largely in the direction of pushing for saying that India needs cryptocurrency. The purpose of the white paper was largely to push for the fact that regulators need to have their concerns addressed. Any new technology that comes in, it goes through a suspicious grind, especially when it entails people, investments, money, and so on. The things that we addressed were all those suspicions and concerns that people had, right from areas of misuse to investor protection, to tax ability to traceability and so on. Ideally there should be an asset class and not currency. We may allow Indian domiciled exchanges to trade in cryptocurrency and only those currencies which work on public ledger may be allowed and those which allow a kind of traceability.

When can we expect the government to implement these regulations?

The government is currently in the process of writing the regulation themselves, and where we are looking at is this is a complex process. We are hoping that some drafts may be ready in the winter session. If it goes into parliament, it will be debated, because we have a lot of parliamentarians who are aware of this topic and are speaking in public. We will possibly see, either in the end of winter session or in the budget session most likely a bill to be passed.

How can cryptocurrencies and its concepts be regulated?

The concept of cryptocurrency was meant to transcend borders and cut across borders, and it didn't believe in any particular geography or jurisdiction. It is always safer to have countries regulating, which is why all the developed countries and mature economies have looked towards regulation. Countries which have issue with their own currencies they have made legal tenders but some countries are evolving and come out with some regulations. India is also in that process right now. To go forward it needs larger international cooperation. China and Turkey have banned it, but I'm not sure mature economies are looking at a banning route.

Is there any need for international cooperation in regulating cryptocurrency?

I would say there is a need for international cooperation, primarily because of addressing misuse. As everything has a use case, everything has a misuse case which has to be reduced. And for that, if you have people transcending borders, it is better to have arrangements in place with international entities.

How do you see regulation of cryptocurrency evolving in India?

I think this is a continuous process. We haven't seen how it further behaves. I would say for what we have seen, let's start putting the regulation in place and the regulation should be a continuously evolving one as we all discover it together.

  Rameesh Kailasam, CEO, India Tech