Indian Ministry of Finance wants the crypto ban to return

It has been only a few months since the Indian Supreme Court decided that the central bank’s ban on cryptocurrencies should be lifted. Now, the country’s Ministry of Finance came out with a new proposal to legally ban digital coins within the country.

With this latest move, the Indian crypto sector faces yet another challenge, despite their efforts to make the crypto industry recognized and supported by the authorities.

Another strike against the crypto industry

From what is known, the proposal is still in the early stages, and it will first be sent to the country’s Union Council of Ministers. After that, its next stop will be the Parliament, which will conduct the final review.

A recent report from the Economic Times mentioned that one of the senior government officials commented on the situation. The official stated that “A note has been moved for inter-ministerial consultations.”

As mentioned, it has only been around three months since the Supreme Court overruled the decision to ban crypto, which was initially brought by the Reserve Bank of India. The bank did not ban owning crypto, but it did order all other banks in the country to immediately stop providing services to crypto businesses and individual users of digital currencies.

This was all the way back in 2018. and the ban was finally lifted after two years.

A previous attempt at a total ban on crypto failed

The new move to ban cryptos completely is not a new idea, either. In July 2019, a high-end government panel led by Subhash Garg, the country’s former finance secretary, created a draft for a law that would place a blanket ban on crypto.

The ban even went as far as to propose a prison sentence of up to 10 years for those who disobeyed. In addition, those who broke the law would also potentially have to pay a fine, which could go up to $3.2 million.

The draft suggested a total ban by stating that “No person shall mine, generate, hold, sell, deal in, issue, transfer, dispose of or use cryptocurrency in the territory of India.”

However, after this initial introduction, the draft was not mentioned again. Now, a new proposal once again brings unrest among the Indian crypto users, just after the enthusiasm started building up following the court’s removal of the RBI ban. Even some major exchanges, like Binance, Kraken, and OKEx, made a move to expand to India.