Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Cardano, believes India has been strongly anti-crypto. Is it a huge mistake from Cardano to ignore the market?
Charles Hoskinson expressed he would love to enter the Indian crypto market, but the Indian government’s strong anti-crypto stance is too much of a hindrance.
This year, the Indian government infamously imposed a strict 30% taxation on profits from virtual digital assets.
Anti-Crypto Stance in India
Besides the 30% tax, India’s Central Bank, the Reserve Bank of India, has put cryptocurrencies under a shadow ban. It firmly believes that crypto could lead to the ‘dollarization’ of the economy. Earlier this year, Coinbase had to close up shop in India due to informal pressure from the Reserve Bank of India.
Amit Shah, the Union Minister of India, believes crypto is responsible for the spike in drug smuggling in India. He is also the chief strategist of the ruling party and close aide to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Nirmala Sitharaman, the finance minister of India, wants to prioritize crypto regulation in the G20 Summit as the nation has the presidency of the Summit for one year.
Sitharaman said:
“You don’t know what the trail leads you to. Is it drug funding? Is it terror funding, or is it just gaming? So that regulation cannot be successful if any one country does it. We have not come up with any plans as yet. So we need to have all the members of the G20 on board to see how best it can be done.”
Ignoring the Indian Market a Huge Mistake for Hoskinson?
According to a June 2022 report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), over 7% of the 1.4 billion Indian population owns cryptocurrencies. Per these statistics, India is indeed a vast market.
However, the regulatory challenges and anti-crypto stance prevent companies from building in India. According to a TechCrunch report, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, doesn’t see a viable business in India today.
He criticized the regulations, saying that:
“A user could trade 50 times a day, and they will lose like 70% of their money. There is not going to be any volume for an order book type of exchange. So we don’t see a viable business in India today.”
But many Indian blockchain enthusiasts believe that ignoring this market will eventually be seen as one of the biggest missteps for Cardano:
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