Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that the Group of 20 (G20) member countries are increasingly accepting that any new regulations on crypto assets must be globally coordinated.
“I am glad to say that there is a greater acceptance among all G20 members, that any action on crypto assets will have to be global. “The G20, I think, has responded fairly with alacrity (on the crypto challenge),” Sitharaman told reporters at a news conference after a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors. “The G20 and its members agree that it’s not going to be possible to have an independent, standalone country dealing with the crypto assets,” the minister added.
Sitharaman told reporters that the group has responded willingly to the issue. During India’s G20 presidency, a “synthesis paper” on crypto assets will be considered. India has maintained that it wants a global effort to address the issues raised by cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, and the finance ministry announced in February that it had held a seminar for G20 member countries to discuss how to develop a common framework.
Earlier in February, Sitharaman had said, “We are going through the study process so that there can be informed discussion. International Monetary Fund (IMF) and also the Financial Stability Board (FSB) have been doing their own little work on the crypto matter and progressing on their own. We’ve now asked them to do the papers and give it to us and the rapidity with which these papers have been already from IMF given and from FSB which will be given in time for the July meeting. I feel that we are progressing in this direction. So something should develop.”
She made the remarks in response to a question about a G20 consensus on crypto assets during India’s presidency. “Recognising the risks attached to the private virtual assets, G20 nations moved a step closer to developing a coordinated and comprehensive policy approach to deal with the crypto assets by considering macroeconomic and regulatory perspectives,” she said.
The central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been debating drafting a law to regulate or even ban cryptocurrencies for several years but has yet to make a final decision. The Reserve Bank of India has stated that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited because they resemble a Ponzi scheme.
