Indian Supreme Court Postpones Cryptocurrency Prohibition Hearing

The Supreme Court of India adjourned the third closing hearing on the ban of the Reserve Bank (RBI) regarding the provision of services to individuals and companies related to Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

#Correction : #Crypto v. #RBI case update:

The date of next hearing was fixed and verbally communicated by the Judge as 12th November.

But since 12th November is a holiday as per the Supreme Court calender, so the next date has been extended to 19th November 2019. pic.twitter.com/JvOalItouw

– Crypto Kanoon (@cryptokanoon) October 16, 2019

Initially, the hearing was supposed to be held on October 15, but due to the non-appearance of the judges it was postponed to November 12. Now it became known that due to national holidays in the country, this date has also been changed.

Recall that in April 2018, RBI forbade its controlled institutions from providing services related to digital currencies to individuals and companies.

As the RBI then stated, cryptocurrencies seriously undermine the anti-money laundering standards developed by the FATF, adversely affect markets, reduce the effectiveness of capital controls, and are used to finance terrorism. In addition, the ministry expressed the belief that when the cryptocurrency market reaches “critical sizes”, the country's financial stability is compromised.

After that, thousands of people in India signed a petition against the ban on cryptocurrency transactions. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has twice left the prohibition of the central bank in effect.

Moreover, the rhetoric of the Indian authorities only became tougher in the future: last summer, a working group under the government of the country recommended banning all cryptocurrencies except for digital tokens issued by the central bank. The punishment for using cryptocurrencies implies fines of up to 250 million rupees ($ 3.63 million) or imprisonment up to 10 years.

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