After India and other G2O countries decided to adopt a crypto roadmap framed with suggestions from global financial institutions, you would have thought that the introduction of these laws was just around the corner. However, that is not the case. A senior government official recently claimed that a Web3-specific crypto law is expected to come into India around mid-2025. This means it could be another 18 months before India gets a final set of laws that Web3 companies must adhere to.
The information was revealed by Jayant Sinha at the India Blockchain Week held in Bengaluru. As chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance in the Indian Parliament, Shah is a lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“Regulators and policymakers are responsible, not only on the innovation side, which we obviously want to encourage, but also on the safety side. We really need to find that balance and that balance will evolve over the next 12 to 18 months,” Coindesk quoted Sinha as saying.
The parliament official said the government is taking calculated steps towards cooperation with Web3 as it is still curious about the use cases of related technologies that could strengthen the nation.
“Global standards are still evolving and 2024 is the year of elections around the world. Many important countries, be it the US, Britain or India, participate in elections. So I'm not sure if the standards will evolve in 2024. We also have to see what will come out of the (crypto) crisis as to whether some of these companies will survive,” Sinha added.
This update from a government official comes just days after Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave soft updates on the future for Web3 in India.
In her update, Sitharaman said that all countries that are part of the G20 group can adapt laws based on the established crypto roadmap and deploy these rules that emphasize supervision and supervision of global stablecoin arrangements (GSCs), along with support for responsible fintech. innovation.
“If we go to the Brazilian presidency, given the momentum that the issue of crypto assets has fueled in the G20, we will know at that time if anything emerges. At this point, the content of the roadmap is what we have to do,” the Finance Minister said.
Meanwhile, the government has ordered all Web3 companies operating in the country to register with the Financial Intelligence Unit and report any detected suspicious crypto transactions to authorities under the country's anti-money laundering laws. Crypto income is also taxed at 30 percent in India, along with a one percent tax applied to each crypto transaction to maintain traces of these otherwise largely anonymous money transfers.
Despite the legal clarity around crypto, India topped a list of 154 countries for having the fastest adoption of cryptocurrencies at the grassroots level. The report prepared by Chainalysis in September also names Nigeria and Thailand as countries showing vibrant cryptocurrency adoption.