India’s Crypto Groups Advocate Crypto As Legitimate Business Activities

India’s crypto community has been suffering for some time under the Reserve Bank of India’s ruling to ban banking services to crypto-using companies within its borders. India seems incredibly divided in how it will handle the increased use of cryptocurrencies, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. The event is only further complicated by way of various factors forcing the Indian Supreme court to delay on drafts that could see a sentence of up to ten years to anyone who makes use of Crypto within India’s borders.

Hard Push For Legal Crypto

As tensions keep on rising and various companies started to set up decentralized exchanges to circumvent the ban on Crypto, a new group has begun to rise up. This group, going by the name Internet And Mobile Association of India, represents various cryptocurrency exchanges. On Wednesday, the group made an argument before the Supreme Court that claimed that crypto trading was perfectly legal under India’s laws, excluding a formal constitutional ban.

Ashim Sood, standing as an advocate of this association, made the all-too-familiar argument that cryptocurrencies act more like commodities rather than currencies proper. Thus, the case holds that it is beyond the jurisdiction of the Reserve Bank of India to try and regulate the field.

Response To RBI Banning Crypto

It’s been almost two years since the RBI had pushed out a circular, dated 6th of April, 2018. This circular mandated all organizations under the RBI’s jurisdiction to summarily refuse services to businesses and service providers that do business within the crypto industry. Furthermore, the organizations themselves have also been promptly banned from using any form of crypto, as well.

As one would imagine, the crypto industry within India hasn’t taken this kindly. There as been a relentless back-and-forth between the RBI and crypto advocates to try and either legally finalize the ban, or vindicate crypto from its confines of the ban.

Dark Days Ahead

Until there’s a resolution to this debacle, India is suffering from being stuck on the backfoot when it comes to state cryptocurrencies. While countries like China are taking the lead, India is experiencing the risk of being caught off guard in a digital arms race.

Time will only tell if India will either ban crypto or vindicate it, but it will inevitably be behind should it try and play catchup. Another prime candidate for being caught off guard is none other than the US, who has been found in legislative issues more often than not when it comes to crypto.