The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday allowed trading in cryptocurrency, thus overruling an earlier cryptocurrency ban imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on trading in virtual currencies such as Bitcoin.
A bench of justices Rohinton Nariman, Aniruddha Bose and V Ramasubramanian pronounced the landmark judgment filed by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), on the validity of the RBI circular which barred the RBI regulated entities from dealing with cryptocurrencies.
The top court’s decision comes after hearing several petitions challenging RBI’s order on April 2018, imposing a ban on financial services from trading in cryptocurrencies. While the order revoked the ban on illegal cryptocurrency trade, it is worth noting that the government already prepared a draft bill that seeks to prohibit mining, holding, selling, trade, issuance, disposal or use of cryptocurrency in the country.
Under the draft bill, all the aforementioned activities can be punished with a fine of up to 250 million rupees ($3.63 million) or imprisonment up to 10 years, or both in some cases.
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