India’s parliamentary agenda for the winter session no longer includes a monetary bill

Cryptocurrencies and the law regulating digital currency are not officially appearing among the bills that the House of Commons of India will consider at the end of the winter session.

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The Indian government may still be considering a bill that could ban certain cryptocurrencies in the country, but lawmakers are unlikely to vote on a bill during the current parliamentary session.

According to a December 17 publication, the House of Representatives of India, Lok Sabha, probably not before the end of the winter session on December 23, consider a bill proposing a ban on “all private cryptocurrencies” in the last days of the 2021 session.

A November 23rd newsletter for Lok Sabha announced that Indian lawmakers could vote on laws that create a “framework to facilitate the creation of an official digital currency” by the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India. In addition, the bill proposes to ban certain cryptocurrencies. The same bill was previously on the parliamentary agenda but did not result in a vote on the regulatory framework or the legal status of digital assets.

In March 2020, India’s Supreme Court lifted a comprehensive ban on cryptocurrencies imposed two years earlier by the Reserve Bank of India. Since then, reports from various local media outlets, as well as statements from officials, have suggested that the government is considering various solutions to regulate or possibly ban digital assets.

Related: The proposed law banning cryptocurrencies is under scrutiny by the Government of India

Even if the Indian parliament doesn’t address the crypto law, the President of India Ram Nath Kovind could issue an executive order to speed up the bill, if Lok Sabha not in session, possibly between December and January. Indian Treasury officials are also considering a regulatory framework that could treat cryptocurrencies as a commodity rather than a currency.

With a population of around 1.4 billion, India’s decision to create a specific regulatory framework for central bank digital currencies and ban many token projects is likely to have a significant impact on the entire space. After the bill was put on the Congress agenda in November, the WazirX crypto exchange saw mass sell-offs that resulted in significant price drops for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and other tokens.