India has never been particularly welcoming of cryptocurrencies. Even when the rest of the world was embracing the idea of cryptocurrency adoption, India was taking the opposite stance.

Even though blockchain technology has received a warm welcome in India, the central bank has tried to suppress cryptocurrency in the nation. With a 30% tax and 1% TDS, the Indian Government had pushed almost $3.8 billion worth of cryptocurrencies to foreign exchanges.

The hope that India will adopt a favorable cryptocurrency position is fading as the days go by. Shaktikanta Das, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), recently discussed cryptocurrency at a Business Today event. Das reiterated his position on cryptocurrency emphasizing the need for an outright ban.

While India recently launched its CBDC in an effort to minimize the monopoly of cryptocurrency in the country, Das stressed that cryptocurrencies are, nothing but gambling and that their value is nothing but a make-believe.

Das also stated that there is no underlying value in cryptocurrencies. 

“Every asset, every financial product has to have some underlying (value) but in the case of crypto, there is no underlying… not even a tulip…and the increase in the market price of cryptos, is based on make-believe. So anything without any underlying, whose value is dependent entirely on make-believe, is nothing but 100 percent speculation or to put it very bluntly, it is gambling,” the Governor said.

Das also believes that legalizing cryptocurrencies will increase the dollarization of the economy, citing the loss of central bank control. He also cited the recent downfall of the FTX exchange as an alarming event and however, noted that CBDC is the future of money.