30% tax too high but creates baseline for crypto industry: Avinash Shekhar, ZebPay

“There will be some clarity that it is a legitimate asset class where one can innovate and contribute towards the GDP of the country and the tax collection of the government,” says , CEO, ZebPay.

In the runup to the Budget, a lot of cryptocurrency exchanges were saying that perhaps it is a better idea to tax cryptocurrencies rather than do away with it or ban it entirely. Do you think that this is going to be a bit of a setback in terms of utilisation of cryptocurrency?
There are two-three things. One is that we have to understand that the crypto was never illegal in India, that crypto was and is legal. And second is that crypto was always taxable. It is not that the crypto gains were not taxable but the clarification or the tax which the government is now saying is 30% and is higher than what we were expecting, but it is a step in the right direction. It creates a baseline for the crypto industry.

As it is a new industry, there is no clarification. Anything which moves the things from grey to white is a welcome step from the government for us and for the industry, it is going to be positive news. Another thing which we are missing is that we all talk about traders and exchanges, but there is an underlying industry which has the potential to become significantly bigger than the exchanges and people who trade in crypto.

The underlying technology and people or the techies in India were and are slightly reluctant to enter into this industry and contribute towards making India a leader in crypto technology. So there will be some clarity there that it is a legitimate asset class where one can innovate and contribute towards the GDP of the country and the tax collection of the government.