Budget 2018: Cryptocurrency not legal tender in India

Cryptocurrency is the rage these days and everyone wants to possess digital assets. Also, there are several fake websites and apps those have emerged to take advantage of the investments made by many who do not have complete knowledge about the same. In this scenario, the Budget 2018 has some announcement from the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. His announcements are aimed at regulating the country's cryptocurrency market but it is not as expected by many prior to the commencement of Budget 2018.

He made it clear that it is not legal tender in the country and that the government will discourage its use. It was also said that the Indian government will look into the utilization of the blockchain technology. This could be disappointing for the investors who wanted to invest their money into the cryptocurrency market of late.

This is not surprising as even before the Budget 2018, Jaitley had been stating that cryptocurrency is not legal tender in the country. There were reports that many banks have frozen the account cryptocurrency exchanges in the country. Also, the ROC (registrar of companies) had stopped registerig companies those intend to act as such exchanges.

In addition to these, there were concerns regarding the operators who wanted to make use of the situation wherein many were greedy to earn quick and short-term gains and disappear after collecting a huge sum of money creating a headache for the government in nabbing them. Also, there are fears as those with black money might also take the cryptocurrency path to invest their money and register gains.

The digital currency segment led by Bitcoin that has been the most popular one among the numerous other options has gained popularity across the global markets. All over the world, there been a move to jump on the crypto trading bandwagon. However, countries such as South Korea have banned anonymous trade in cryptocurrency.

The risk associated with cryptocurrency investments is also high with several hackers having used criminal elements to take away the investments made by people involved in this trading. Notably, there is no way to get back the digital assets lost to the hackers, which is worse than a nightmare. We can expect more clarity on cryptocurrency from the government.