India’s Central Bank Pauses Plans To Launch Digital Currency, Media Reports

By Kapil Gauhar

As New Year begins, a slight gain was seen for top 20 cryptocurrencies in Asia. In spite of the news, India’s central bank is shelving plans to launch a digital token.

In April 2018, the central bank had made an announcement regarding issuing its own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

According to the media reports, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) changed the plans to debut a digital token, despite the tightening controls on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Hindu Business Line quoted an anonymous source as saying –

“The government doesn’t want the digital currency anymore. It thinks it is too early to even think about a digital currency.”

In spite of the negative news, at the time of writing, Bitcoin rose 3.18% to $3,859.29, and Ethereum climbed 6.24% to $142.84. XRP climbed 3.77% to $0.3677 and Litecoin jumped 4.95% to $31.96.

The news out of India was exacerbated by reports that Iran is likewise clamping down on the digital currencies.

The Tehran Times reported –

“The government had said any cooperation with the Telegram messaging app to launch its cryptocurrency Gram in Iran would be considered an act against national security and a disruption to the national economy.”

Javad Javidnia, The Secretary of the Criminal Content Definition Task Force, said –

“One of the most important factors in banning Telegram was a sense of serious economic threat from its activities, which was unfortunately marginalized and neglected due to the fuss in the political atmosphere of the country.”

Somewhere else, the Intercontinental Exchange reported another fresh update to the launch course of the events for Bakkt Bitcoin Daily Futures Contract. The launch had been recently set for January 24th, but now will be corrected pursuant to the CFTC’s procedure and timeline.

In the US, Senator Elizabeth Warren stepped into the 2020 presidential race on Monday. She hasn’t been wary of digital currencies by far. In October 2018, Warren warned the Senate Banking Committee that cryptocurrencies are easy to steal and a lot of small investors have been scammed by ICOs, according to a Forbes report.