Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Wednesday at Stanford University that crypto regulation will take time for the government to adopt a measured approach.
“We recognize that there is great potential in distributed ledger technologies and there is already well-founded progress,” Sitharaman said. Therefore, the government does not intend to “hurt” these innovations or “say we don’t need them,” she added.
But cryptocurrencies can be used for illegal purposes, such as money laundering and terrorist financing, so the government needs time to figure out “how to promote their growth and how we are going to fight it,” Sitharaman said.
“The outside world is impatiently saying: “What are you doing with cryptocurrency?” I can understand the impatience, but I’m sorry, that’s the way it will be,” she added. The introduction of regulation “should take some time” for the government to make a “considered decision” based on the information available, “this should not be rushed,” she said.
India’s Cryptocurrency Bill, which aims to ban all private cryptocurrencies, was on the agenda of the winter parliamentary session last year but was never introduced.
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