At a time when smaller economies like Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have come forward to regulate cryptocurrencies, India must follow suit, remarked Cryptocurrency exchange Koinex founder Rahul Raj.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the International Blockchain Congress on Saturday where he implied that there is a likelihood that those interested in cryptocurrencies will look outside the country if the government does not have an ‘open mind’. “There are several use cases of blockchain which cannot function without utility to open up cryptocurrency. So, people who want to set up business, who have an interest in blockchain, academia and people who are investing in it, will come together and begin to have a narrative: that you have blocked us from doing which smaller economies have forward to regulate. These countries have taken progressive view and you (India) should probably be keeping an open mind,” he said.
He said if cryptocurrency exchanges are barred from functioning in India, as a natural course of action, they would ‘move out’ to countries which permit them to operate.
Koinex’s peer to peer network for digital asset transactions enables users to exchange fiat currency for digital assets.
Speaking about the platform, Mr. Raj said, “You can send me money, and unless you are mentioning by Bitcoin in remarks, the bank will not know what it is for. It may be a loan transaction, it may be me paying you back for the food you bought for me; it could be any transaction. We are effectively tapping into the banking infrastructure without getting directly involved and enabling people to do that through a platform that is called Loop,” he said.