Indian crypto community witnessed 2020’s first hearing on crypto v/s RBI matter today, January 14, 2020. Per the latest report, the case was supposed to be heard as early as beginning day, but the Supreme Court of India passed over the case to the end phase of the hearing day. For those unfamiliar, “Crypto Vs RBI” goes all the way back to 2018. RBI ( Reserve Bank of India ) has been clear from the beginning that they don’t approve of digital currencies. This case is very important, because it will essentially determine whether or not the crypto ban will be lifted in India.
The updates were initially shared by Crypto Kanoon, India’s crypto media platform, dedicated to legality around crypto in India. The platform quickly affirmed that the Supreme court is likely interested in a long argument.
Although the Supreme court finally re-opened the case today, it didn’t finalize anything specifically yet. More so, it will be continued tomorrow on January 15, 2020, as it was partly heard today.
When the crypto matter (which was listed on item no.1) has been called, Mr. Sood ( representing crypto ecosystem in India) took charge and started the arguments. As per the Kashif Raza who’s heading CryptoKanoon, the Supreme Court this time directed IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) council to involve the fresh arguments on crypto matters from the beginning. However, the case was benched by three judges and Mr. Sood opened argument on RBI v/s Crypto by explaining the nature of cryptocurrencies, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), the advantages of DLT and disadvantages of centralization, Consensus, blockchain technology, how the information is authenticated by different nodes on a decentralized network and more.
What’s more interesting in today’s Crypto v/s RBI case is that Mr. Sood emphasized virtual currencies in a unique manner. As per Mr. Raza who shared a short clip on today’s case on CryptoKanoon’s official Telegram channel, Sood elaborated that the term people use to describe cryptocurrency is not a currency per se.
When we say that the Computer is infected by a virus…. it doesn’t mean that but this is the closest explanation which can be given.
Besides, Mr. Sood attempted to explain that the practice of assuming anything of value as a currency is an old practice.“”People ascribe value to stones and other material in the exchange of which they are interesting”, Mr. Sood stated.
This part of the argument of Sood indeed gained a lot of traction in Indian crypto community. In fact, the CEO of Binance’s Indian wing WazirX, Nischal Shetty took to Twitter and said;
Amazing arguments from Mr. Ashim Sood who’s representing the Crypto ecosystem of India. The way the Computer Virus does not mean it’s literally a virus, Cryptocurrency does not mean it’s a currency! Kudos to ensuring everyone understands Crypto can be a utility, asset, etc too!
As the Indian Supreme court timing ends at 4pm, Mr. Sood couldn’t continue the argument further, however, it is exciting to keeping an eye on this case tomorrow, January 15, 2020.
Image Source – Flickr
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