No decision yet on banning crypto advisements: Sitharaman tells Rajya Sabha

New Delhi, Nov 30: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday stated that there is no decision to stop advertisements of digital currencies in India.

Answering a question relating to cryptocurrencies in Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, "This is a risky area and not in a complete regulatory framework. No decision was taken on banning its advisements. Steps are taken to create awareness through RBI and SEBI. The government will soon introduce a Bill."

A cryptocurrency is a form of digital money that is not controlled by a central authority such as the government. It is based on blockchain technology, which is a distributed ledger framework.

Many popular cryptocurrencies are currently available in India, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano (ADA), Uniswap (UNI) and Binance Coin, which are based on public blockchain networks.

The government has raised concern a rising number of advertisements promising easy and high returns on investments in cryptocurrencies. And hence, the government is mulling for a strong regulatory steps could be taken to deal with the issue.

Though, crypto investment has attracted investors, it pose a severe danger to the country's macroeconomic and financial stability. One must be aware of using or investing in these cryptocurrencies.

Replying to a series of questions in the Rajya Sabha, Sitharaman said, "This Bill, once the Cabinet clears, will come into the house".

The government had also listed a similar Bill for the last Parliament session (monsoon) but it was not taken up. "The earlier attempt was definitely to come up with a Bill that the house can consider. But, later, because rapidly a lot of things had to come into play, we had started working on a new Bill. This is the Bill that is now being proposed," she said adding that there was a "genuine attempt" to bring the Bill even during the monsoon session.

The government plans to introduce the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament. The Bill seeks to ban all but a few private cryptocurrencies to promote underlying technologies while allowing an official digital currency by RBI.

Sitharaman, on Monday, had said that the government has no proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency in the country.

She also informed the House that the government does not collect data on Bitcoin transactions.