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Indian Finance Minister Says Crypto Regulation Is a 'Working Priority' for Its G20 Presidency Next Month

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said framing crypto assets would be one of eight priorities that are still in the works for the nation's year-long G20 Presidency which begins next month during a speech at an event of a think tank on Tuesday.

Sitharaman had earlier mentioned crypto would be on the agenda of its G20 Presidency but this is the first time she has stated it would be one of the unfinalized "priorities." She was giving the keynote address at an annual event hosted by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) on the upcoming G20 Conference.

The G20 is an intergovernmental forum made up of 19 economies and the European Union. Indonesia currently holds the presidency of the group. India will not only hold the G20 presidency starting in December but will also host the G20 Leaders’ Summit for the first time next year giving it the ability to frame the topics and themes to be discussed.

Sitharaman said we need to encourage the IMF (International Monetary Fund), FSB (Financial Stability Board), OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), and other bodies to understand "how crypto assets can be regulated with all countries being on board."

"No one single country can succeed in individually, being in a silo, trying to regulate the crypto assets," she said.

She said India has "not come out with any plans as yet" referring to crypto-specific legislation because "we need to have all the members of the G20 first of all to come on board to see how best it can be done."

"I know work has been done by FSB, OECD, IMF, and also the BIS (Bank of International Settlements). So we'll have to bring all of them together and then put it on the table for the members to have a meaningful conversation on it," she said.

Earlier in the day, India's Chief Economic Advisor V. Anantha Nageswaran, said identifying "consensus-based solutions for accelerating the scale and scope of the response of the global community to many transboundary challenges such as regulation of virtual assets," would be a priority objective of India's G20 Presidency.

Meanwhile, Sitharaman made clear she was only talking about crypto as assets and not as currency, which is the domain of the Indian central bank (RBI). Regulating crypto as assets is "in the national interest because you don’t know what the trail leads you to. Is it drug funding? Is it terror funding? Or is it just gaming the system and so on?” she said. The Finance Minister has earlier said RBI is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited but that no legislation is possible without significant international collaboration.

Showcasing India’s digital revolution would be another priority during the G20 presidency and that involves the nation’s central bank digital currency, which the RBI started testing today, Sitharaman said.

Read More: Crypto Regulation Will Be a Priority for G20 Under India Presidency, Official Says

(Update 11:07 UTC, Nov. 1, 2022) - Adds additional comments from Sitharaman in the last two paragraphs.

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