At India Today Conclave 2024, Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister of the country, stated that the Indian vision is to not treat virtual currencies/cryptocurrencies as legal currency. Her speech was made during the time when crypto-currencies use and regulation issues have drawn being at the center of various debates in society.

Cryptocurrencies as Assets and Not Currencies

As for Sitaraman, she explained that the cryptocurrency assets are multifunctional though their aim is not to become a legal currency for the Government of India. This consolidation in turn underscores the government's established stance and the intention is to bring about more certainty within the fintech innovation world.

The Finance Minister put more emphasis on risks likely to be associated with unregulated cryptocurrencies, among which are their illegality and their nature to be used by their users in money laundering and funding terrorism. Sitharaman stressed the necessity of harmonized legislation on the international level, the reason behind this being the technology-driven nature of cryptocurrencies, the global currency that has led to challenges in cross-border transactions and even in regulatory oversight.

Regulatory and Control on the part of the Government

Amidst the exuberance of cryptocurrencies and the new wave of blockchain technological development, Sitharaman adopted a conservative stance which viewed the strengthening and modernizing of the existing regulatory framework as the most pragmatic way of protecting people's financial integrity and personal security. Although India has legalized both cryptocurrency trading and cryptocurrency holding, the country has multiple anti-money laundering laws and KYC rules of practice in place, which help to restrain money laundering harms.

In a nutshell, Nirmala Sitharaman’s demonstration that India has taken a stand on cryptocurrency is an indication of the government being keen on balancing innovation with regulation.  The world’s digital economy is no longer constant and thus, governments remain proactive in addressing the challenges and opportunities brought about by technological reforms in the financial sector.