340

NUMBER OF CRYPTO START-UPS IN INDIA

$400-500 million

DAILY CRYPTO TRADING VOLUME IN INDIA

₹25.47 lakh

PRICE OF 1 BITCOIN AS ON JUNE 21, 2021

On May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, a Florida-based programmer, made the world’s first commercial transaction using bitcoins. He bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. At today’s prices, that’s $357 million, making it the world’s most expensive food order ever. A month ago, when bitcoin was at its peak, the two pizzas would have been valued at $600 million. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts celebrate May 22 as the Bitcoin Pizza Day.

Despite their enormous appeal and growing demand, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are fighting for legitimacy globally. But nations detest them. Government of India is, in fact, looking at criminalising possession, mining, trading, transfer and issue of crypto assets. Even though this threatens the Digital India initiative by hurting the development of blockchain – a database that stores data in blocks and could potentially help governments and companies in seamless record-keeping and reducing frauds.

Over the past eight years, the central government, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the judiciary have been blowing hot and cold over cryptocurrencies, without providing a clear answer whether they are legal or not. This has kept those who have invested ₹15,000 crore in 340 crypto trading platforms on tenterhooks. Nearly $400-500 million (₹2,920-3,650 crore) worth of daily trading is at stake as industry awaits in stony silence.

What are Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrencies are digital assets on peer-to-peer networks. They run on blockchain. This makes it impossible to change, hack or cheat the system as transaction ledgers are distributed across peer networks. New transactions are added to every participant’s ledger. The digital ledger publicly validates all transactions.

These digital coins can be used as currency, asset, securities or utilities. As currency, they can be used for buying various goods and services. Bitcoin, for instance, is being accepted for various goods and services. As an asset or a security, it is like shares. The security tokens derive value from an external asset that can be traded. These tokens represent rights over property, company shares, revenue streams or underlying assets. In some countries, there