The Financial Stability Board (FSB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) will deliver papers and recommendations establishing standards for a global crypto regulatory framework, announced on Feb. 25 the group of the 20 biggest economies of the world, collectively known as G20. According to a document summarizing the outcomes of the meeting with finance ministers and central bank governors, the FSB will release by July 2023 recommendations on the regulation, supervision and oversight of global stablecoins, crypto assets activities and markets. The next guidance is expected for September 2023, when the FSB and the …

During the first G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting under India’s presidency, the members were invited to discuss key financial stability and regulatory priorities, among other policy approaches. India urged member nations to build and understand the macro-financial implications of crypto assets and recommended formulating a coordinated global policy. India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has historically supported the idea of creating crypto regulations in partnership with other jurisdictions — given the global reach of crypto assets. Under India's G20 Presidency, this narrative is now a part of mainstream discussions. During the FMCBG meeting held on Feb. 24 …

India’s national payment network, called the unified payments interface (UPI), is expanding its services beyond Indian borders to Singapore. The cross-border connectivity between Singapore and India via their respective rapid payment systems, namely PayNow and the UPI. Shri Shaktikanta Das, governor of the Reserve Bank, and Mr Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, launched the facility through token transactions using the UPI-PayNow linkage. The UPI-PayNow integration will allow users of the two nations to send money across borders quickly. It is possible to send or receive money from India using only a UPI-id, cellphone number, or …

Indian authorities once again demonstrated their tough stance on cryptocurrencies with a preemptive ban on crypto advertising and sponsorships in the local women’s cricket league. As reported by Planet Sport on Feb. 14, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) sent a 68-page advisory to the Women's Premier League teams, specifying the activities which couldn’t be advertised. In the document, cryptocurrencies were mentioned among the gambling and tobacco industries: “No franchisee shall undertake a partnership or any kind of association with an entity that is in any way connected/related to an entity that is involved/operates, directly or indirectly, …

The Indian government doesn’t want to rush its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot despite joining the CBDC race just a few months ago. India’s recently launched CBDC pilot has amassed 50,000 users, and 5,000 merchants since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the digital rupee pilot last year, local news agency The Economic Times reported on Feb. 8. Announcing the first public milestones of India’s digital currency at a policy press conference, RBI deputy governor Rabi Sankar stressed that the government plans to proceed with CBDC testing in the smoothest way possible. “We have our targets in terms …

In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, the Algorand team said that it partnered with Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad and the Indian School of Business with the intention of launching educational programs. This includes programs for both faculty development and student developer training. In addition, the firm will also be hosting a master class for businesses looking to dive into the Web3 space. Anil Kakani, Algorand's recently-appointed country head for India, said that the partnerships aim to build sustainable impact. He explained: Algorand Foundation announced several partnerships in India, including collaborations with schools to develop educational programs that will help …

India’s Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, stated that regulation “cannot be done” by a single country, it requires “collective action,” in a recent television interview. Speaking to Rahul Joshi on CNBC-TV18 in India on Feb. 3, Sitharaman noted that while the central bank is the “authority for issuing cryptocurrency,” the rest of the digital assets created outside are “using very useful financial technologies.” Sitharaman said that India is looking at a "global" standard operating procedure (SOP) to be “agreed upon” for regulating crypto assets, ahead of India hosting the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Bengaluru later this …

The debacle between the global cryptocurrency exchange Binance and Zanmai, the operator behind the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, continues in a new blog post from Binance banning the latter from utilizing its services. On Feb. 3, Binance released a post that acknowledged the ongoing “public debate” with Zanmai over its claims of Binance involvement in running WazirX. Binance said on Jan. 26 it gave WazirX the ultimatum of retracting its statements and continuing using Binance wallet services or terminating its usage. According to the announcement, Zanmai made no retraction and now has until Feb. 3, 2023, 23:59 UTC, to remove …

One of India’s biggest retail chains, Reliance Retail, announced that they have started accepting the digital rupee at one of its store lines and plans to extend the rollout to all its businesses. In a report by Tech Crunch, the company said that CBDC support is already rolled out at Freshpik, its gourmet store line. In addition, the firm also noted that it will be expanding support for the digital rupee to all of its properties, a move that could potentially push adoption forward for the country’s CBDC. V Subramaniam, an executive at Reliance Retail, pointed out that the acceptance …

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology found no mention in India’s union budget for the year 2023, bringing down the hopes of millions of crypto holders in the country. Many in the Indian crypto community were hoping for some reduction to the high crypto tax, implemented in March 2022. Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the union budget on Feb. 1, announcing key changes to the income tax slabs, but didn’t mention crypto or central bank digital currency or blockchain tech during the session. Last year, India levied a 30% tax on crypto profits and a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) …

Investor sentiment has always been a critical driver in the crypto space. Both positive and negative sentiment influence ongoing trends — be they price movements, product launches or regulations. In 2022, sentiment worldwide suffered as major crypto firms and ecosystems collapsed, further straining investors amid an unforgiving bear market. While many showed resilience as Terraform Labs, Celsius and Voyager, among others, closed down, Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged misappropriation of FTX customers’ funds drove even the most die-hard crypto investors to question the integrity of those running the show. A series of scams, crashes, bankruptcy filings and court cases have forced investors …

After the paranoia and turmoil in the crypto industry caused by the FTX liquidity and bankruptcy scandal, major digital-asset service providers in the space began publicizing their reserve funds. The latest to join the proof of reserve trend is the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX. It announced its act of transparency on Jan. 11 stating that: "We are not only India's largest crypto exchange by volume but also India’s largest crypto exchange by reserves.” WazirX used CoinGabbar, a third-party crypto asset tracking platform, to display its proof of reserves. According to the data WazirX has roughly $285 million in total user …