 Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Entrepreneur India's webinar titled India's cryptocurrency call. While the crypto space was mostly passive before 2020 in India, the pandemic here saw enormous interest in the space. As a result, the government has also got interested and we are awaiting a bill that will decide the future of digital currencies in India. The space has already seen some ups and downs and when the Reserve Bank of India barred financial institutions from participating in cryptos to the Supreme Court deciding against it. As of date, an estimated $1 billion have been invested in cryptocurrencies by Indians already. So what will happen if it gets banned? What will happen to the blockchain space and why is the government so sceptic about it? Today we are going to try to find some of those answers. I'm Saurav Kumar, editor of Special Projects Entrepreneur India, and I have with me today Mr. Neeraj Khandelwal, co-founder of CoinDCX, Mr. Nishal Shetty, founder and CEO of Vazirex, and Mr. Akash Karmakar, partner with the law officers of Panad and Babu. Welcome, everyone. Before we start the discussion, I request the listeners to post questions through the comment section of Facebook or Q&A option on Zoom and we will take up the questions post the discussion. So Akash, let me start with you. The Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, recently said the existing laws are inadequate to deal with issues concerning them, wherein he was referring to cryptocurrency. And as we speak, a bill is being finalized, which will be sent to the Cabinet pretty soon. So can you take us through? Can you tell us what exactly is the problem here? What is the government sceptic about? So thanks for that. Just to very quickly lay out the lay of the land in terms of the regulatory landscape. As you might be aware, India had not taken any moves towards regulating crypto until 2018. And even in 2018, the first move so to speak from a regulator was by the RBI when they decided that they would in effect cut off all forms of financing to and from cryptocurrency by virtue of a circular which was dated April 6th, where they directed all regulated entities including banks and financial institutions to stop dealing in any virtual currency. Now, there are two fundamental aspects here which need regulation. The first is how India views and treats crypto currencies. And the second is how they view other blockchain based products, which are effectively products which are based on the underlying technology but having taken on the color of a cryptocurrency. There could be other forms of asset classes, it could be say a sound calling which is essentially just the right to say for example, listen to a particular song and for that matter anything could be tokenized. So the problem which we've currently faced is that there's been no regulation which a defines what is a cryptocurrency to contrast it from other crypto asset classes, or other products which are based on blockchain. And secondly, we've thus far not really had any sort of policy or framework which governs how India views these particular classes of assets and all currencies. Now, interestingly enough, what we've, what we've suddenly moved towards is move which is headed towards a complete ban, at least for now it looks like there is an absolute ban on all forms of cryptocurrency other than for the government backed crypto currencies, which is a very unique position to take because if we dial back to the origin of cryptocurrencies. It is ironic that this is the move that we that we're actually taking initially cryptocurrencies were intended to actually operate outside of any government regulation without outside of the current regulated financial system. We've come a long way from that cryptocurrency have gained wide acceptance. We've got people like Elon Musk, Tesla, Uber backing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. So there is no need for regulation, but how we regulate it is the question here. And there are a couple of challenges in regulating it. The question now is, why isn't it taking the current standard it's taking and in what direction is policy bought. Okay. All right. All right, Akash initial needed initial let me come to you first how founded or unfounded do you think these worries are as Akash stated right now what do you think of them. Look, I think there's still no clarity on what the bill exactly contains, because the only thing that we've known is about a couple of lines that describe the bill. And of course as this whole section which says about private cryptocurrencies will be back. Though from the last one to two years of development, what we can understand is that the government's biggest problem seems to be no one should build a competing policy to the end. More than anything else that seems to be the biggest, you know, point of contention for the government. And I think as an industry we are okay with that. In fact, I think I'm personally against again someone creating a competing cryptocurrency for India. I don't think anyone except the government should do that. But the problem lies in the understanding the basic understanding of how cryptocurrencies are classified. And I've been telling this everywhere that everyone's putting a blanket definition of a cryptocurrency saying that every cryptocurrency is a currency. And that's where the whole issue that we are facing today in our country exists, where you know, cryptocurrencies have these four major classifications, which are accepted the world war, which is a crypto can be a currency, or it can be an asset, or it can be a security, or it can be a utility. The problem that is arising today is everyone who's talking negative about cryptocurrency is simply thinks about the currency definition or the currency classification and puts this as a blanket, you know, point on everything. So I think as an industry what we are also doing is to make sure before the bill even reaches a stage where it's going to be discussed seriously, we at least remove this misinformation that exists in our country. Once the information is clear, I don't think the government would want to ban something that can be defined as an asset or a utility, or can help the stock markets tomorrow by issuing securities that can be traded anywhere in the world. So the currency part I think as an industry we completely agree, and there should not be anyone competing with our INA, it belongs to our country and that is what should exist. But the other classifications, I think that is where no one has spoken about, and I think that's what we as an industry are trying to evolve and discuss more about. So yeah, I think the bill coming there, I would still say it's positive. The reason being, I think about three or four months ago, we did not know if the government was even thinking of the sector. Now we at least know that the government is thinking about it, it's going in that direction. Let it be negative, positive, whatever I think as an industry the government will interact with us, and then we'll find a middle path where we'll make sure that the government's problems are solved while we keep this innovative sector and keep growing it like the rest of the world is doing. So it's okay, I think net net, I'm very positive that we are at least doing this as a nation. Before I go to the next question, gentlemen, feel free to jump in wherever you think you want to make a point, because I'll be asking questions one by one. So please feel free to do that. Needless coming back to you next. There's one country where Coinbase is thinking of going for a direct listing and here we are thinking of how to regulate and what to do with crypto assets and crypto plus. And the other thing, which is very importantly, I wanted to ask you, at least was Edex, CoinGCX, you wanted to have a dialogue with the government as a consultation before anything is decided. So were you able to do that? Yes, sort of your right. Coinbase has recently filed for an IPO in the US. And on the other hand, we are, at least that's the word in the market that India might ban cryptocurrencies. According to me, the major difference is in the mindset here, you know, the mindset of experimentation, essentially, in the US, no one is banning cryptocurrencies because of its problems, because of the negative, you know, like, it's probable. Probably the cryptocurrencies might interfere with the central banks, you know, policies, interfere with the government's government's functioning. But but it has certain benefits, it has so many possible economic efficiencies that it can bring. Right. So that kind of experimentation mindset, right, I think is is something we need to put, we need to bring a mainstream in India as well. So that is the key difference here. So, in my opinion, we should not put a blanket ban on the cryptocurrencies, rather than that we should have an experimentation mindset as initial mentioned that cryptocurrencies in itself, it's a vast domain, there are many types of cryptocurrencies, having utilities, having securities, having properties of currencies. So we should critically evaluate what are what are the cryptocurrencies meant for what is it how the technology can benefit us, and then take actions very in a calibrated manner, not just put a blanket ban on something new, something like a new technology, rather than that go deeper and evaluate. And of course, the industry, the government, the regulators, all of them have to come together, and then understand the potential benefits of the technology, and then take the next step forward. Otherwise, it's not, it's not going to be possible because the government has so many different issues to cater to the regulators are already worried about so many other things, right, industry has good information about what the technology is, how it is evolving across the globe, how it is impacting across the globe, the industry has that kind of a knowledge already. So that we feel that the industry can certainly add value to the understanding of regulators and the government, how they see how they perceive it, right. So that is why as you mentioned, the right kind of the consultation, the discussions between the government and industry is very key here to bring that kind of experimentation mindset, it's very important. So we have been able to, you know, of course, you must have seen that a lot of talks have been going on in the media, a lot of media houses have already spoken about it, the industry is very vibrant when it comes to actively circulating the views and the perspectives on the industry. The formal channels need to be opened up, of course. And as Nishal mentioned, that this is the right step. This is the right step that the bill is going to be placed in the parliament and the discussions can be done around it. And, you know, the formal official channels can be opened. Right now, we feel that the government needs to proactively discuss this with industry that is still lacking. It's not up to the mark. The communication line is still not up to the mark. And, you know, that needs to be bridged. So, so Bill being table in the parliament in the current session could ignite that kind of a discussion and take the industry towards the positive direction. I think I would like to add to what Miraj has been saying. One important thing is, while we've heard of this whole bill and the ban, not even one elected representative, like an MP has really come forward and said, no, I want a ban in the country. And what we've been seeing by talking to them in whatever little we've had in the past, they're all pro innovation. So, while the bill might be there, I believe that parliament are also going to question that if no other country in the world is banned crypto, why is India, and what data is India found or what idea has India come up with, that we want to promote a ban instead of following what other countries are doing, which is regulations and bringing the right side of, you know, I would say regulatory processes to ensure that good actors can grow the company. Like you said, Coinbase is going, it's valued at $100 billion. We don't have even a, I don't know, we don't have a $200 million company in India in this space. So what are we doing? I think we are already lagging behind. And let me jump in on that point, Mr. So I think Neeraj rightly pointed out that, you know, there is a distinction between how other countries are looking at cryptocurrencies and how we're looking at cryptocurrencies. And just to touch upon a point that Mr. mentioned earlier. So I think we need to bucket crypto into two completely different categories. One which falls into the currency category. And at that point I agree with Mr. that if you're trying to look at the currency, which is an equivalent of a country sanctioned currency that needs to be within the domain of the sovereign, you cannot have anything which competes with the rupee. So that's what that's perfectly fine. So if the cryptocurrency bill in the current form, if you look at the draft, it seems to have a blanket ban rather than, you know, draw out this nuance distinction. Now, I have two things which I would like to propose going forward in terms of how policy should be molded. It's not where we are today. And I think Neeraj has been quite vocal about saying that there needs to be more consultations. The process has to be more, you know, it has to integrate industry into this into the legislation and the legislative process. But on that point, I think firstly, the RBI 2018 ban seem to have been rolled back by the Supreme Court, because they said that you cannot go ahead and, you know, have a blanket ban by cutting off financing to cryptocurrencies and virtual currencies in India. That was again a blanket ban. Now, we seem to have had a rollback from the blanket ban by the Supreme Court's order as of last year, where the Internet and Mobile Association of India challenged the RBI order. Now, by virtue of a legislation, we seem to be again going back towards a complete ban. So what appears to be happening is that we're oscillating between a ban and having no regulation. Whereas what we need to actually do is to have a middle path where we say, you know what, we are going to try and understand the use cases of this technology as it evolves. Accept, first of all, that you cannot preempt every single use case right now, which is where the concept of a regulatory sandbox comes in. So the RBI, SEBI, IRDA all had launched their own regulatory sandboxes for various technologies to be tested within, so to speak, a sandbox where the regulators able to understand what use cases are actually being deployed, how those would yield certain regulatory challenges, so on and so forth. We've not actually adapted that concept of a regulatory sandbox to blockchain technology. Interestingly enough, most of the countries are saying, we don't understand what potential issues or hazards may arise out of the use of say, tokens or you know, such as a utility token as Nishchal mentioned earlier, or the use of blockchain in an entirely different use case, such as say, for example, to trace the title to land, which is something which we have not been able to digitize over several years, or being able to move it onto blockchain technology will help that particular use case. And frankly, there are so many use cases that the regulator would not be able to preempt each at the time of drafting regulations. So the approach would be to set out broad guidelines which distinguish between currencies and other use cases because otherwise what seems to be happening is there will be a lot of collateral damage where you know there are use cases which are not currencies. Those will start getting impacted by this one zero binary type approach to trying to ban everything which has the word crypto, or can be blanket associated in some manner by this definition of cryptocurrency crypto assets. What do you think Mr. Yeah, so I think you wanted to ask something specific. I mean, you answered that. And then, yeah, you saw my point is that rightly, as you mentioned that you know, there are four categories of crypto, it's not only currency, there is asset that is, you know, utility. And Akash is also trying to say the same thing then a blanket is not what will work because I believe, or I will think that, you know, it's not. What is the technology called blockchain. What happened, I mean, if you banned something like you know crypto then will that effect will that have a collateral damage as Akash was saying on the entire space which is the blockchain development. Yeah, so I think that's that's one of the other largest misconception in fact and we've seen if you look at the history of the whole crypto and blockchain ecosystem. What is that start eventually start the negative start where the blockchain not crypto or blockchain not Bitcoin kind of thing and then eventually they understand this has happened in the US also. The problem is, when you say blockchain not crypto, what you're telling is you are interested in technology that private companies will you not the public, because you cannot have a public blockchain without crypto. So there's no technology in the world today that can give you a public blockchain, which means anyone in the on the internet can access and participate without having crypto to secure that net. So crypto is what secures a public blockchain. And if you're talking about a blockchain without crypto what you're saying is it's a private company database. And as a nation I don't see why we should be backing or promoting a private company databases. We should be looking at public projects, which can only be built with crypto to secure these public databases or public blockchain network. So this is one of the largest misconception. I don't know where it's coming from, but it's really coming from the wrong places where our nation is talking about private blockchains today. And they're telling the public blockchains as private. So it's really confusing. And you know, when we go deeper I think eventually I've seen this narrative globally in countries, eventually they understand that a public blockchain cannot exist without crypto. So you need crypto, because many times they say keep the crypto outside your blockchain. Now if I want to build a public project, I cannot do it technically without crypto to secure that network. So this is something that you know, the first stages of understanding blockchain where people get into, but eventually they realize it's like, you know, it's like the internet and the intranet. That's the best example. When you say blockchain without crypto, you're talking intranet. And when you say blockchain with crypto, you're talking the internet. As a nation, we have progress not because of the intranet, but because of the internet. So if we want to innovate in progress, we'll have to adopt blockchain and crypto together. They're both sides of the same coin. And this distinction is very, very important. Neeraj? Neeraj? Yes. So Akash made a point that either we are looking at binary one or zero and we're not looking at in between, either we are oscillating between band or a completely node regulation. So obviously we need to find a middle path for that. I'll go to another question that you just say in case there is something called up, you know, if the bill says that we will not allow cryptocurrencies to operate. Then what happens to the $1 billion that has already been invested by retail investors, people like you, your investors, what happens to them? That's, that's a very, so sort of it's very unlikely scenario in my opinion. But of course, if, if, if I push my imagination, then it would be a complicated scenario. Frankly speaking, it would, I mean, this $1 billion is the hard money of, of so many people, millions of people at the end of the day. And so the question is, if everybody wants to sell their crypto assets, who will they buy it with in India, right? Who would want to, especially if you put a ban, then, then what kind of people who want to buy crypto assets, when the government is saying that you cannot, if, if, you know, there is a ban, then, then it would be a very difficult scenario. The prices could come crashing in the Indian market, right? And somehow essentially, these crypto assets need to be sold in the international markets, because there, of course, there is a certain degree of acceptance. There is this, I mean, India as a country will need to sell all the crypto assets held by its nationals to some other country. That arrangement needs to be made in that scenario. You cannot just ban it and say, okay, do whatever you want, sell it to anywhere through it. Of course, that, that is something which is not feasible. This money is real money. Money are in these crypto assets, it's real money. It needs to be sold if you want to get out of it. So if the government plans to ban it, put a blanket ban, then the government will also need to make provisions to sell the crypto, all the crypto held by Indian nationals to some other country or to some, you know, foreign parties and then connect the US dollars which you get from selling and then give that to the Indian. I mean, that is the, that is, that will have to be done if you plan to ban it. And then, of course, at that point in time, the government will, the government may also realize that, okay, we bought collectively, we invested $1 billion, but now that we are selling it in the international market, we are getting $4 billion, because crypto has grown four times in the last two years, right? So it would be a profit for the country as a whole. So Meeraj, if I can just chip in there, I think the government is taking a very interesting view on this and there could be three outcomes. The first is that, and the reason for this, the compelling the sale of cryptos could very well be because the government feels that this is actually in violation of the foreign exchange management act. And now I'm speaking purely in relation to what's happened with cryptocurrency investors in India and retail investors in India. So when in 2018, the RBI actually banned cryptocurrency, there was panic selling by the investors. So that results in a distressed asset sale where you really don't have much bargaining power. You feel pressed against the wall to sell at whatever price you're selling it at. And there have been investors who, yes, invested early and they may have had a 4x5 debt sale. But there are also investors who just begun investing because the Supreme Court overturned the RBI's ban very recently and they may be hot water. Now, with the cross-border trade of any sort of crypto assets, there is a broader question which is currently unanswered. And that is another Laguna in Indian law, which is that the Foreign Exchange Management Act views crypto assets as a capital account transaction because at the risk of oversimplification, it affects your assets and liabilities. Now with capital account transactions, the thumb rule is that unless it's specifically permitted its prohibitive, and with current account transactions, it's unless it's specifically prohibited its permitting. Now, because we're looking at a capital account transaction and we've never really permitted cryptocurrency investments out of India, the government does have and could very well say that we view this as a violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act. So how do you impose a penalty of 3x on the earnings of the amount invested? The RBI in an RBI query said that crypto does not come under Pema. So this was a RBI reply by the RBI itself. And even in the Supreme Court also, this has been again mentioned that crypto assets don't come under Pema right now. Well, it's not been regulated, but given the fact that the RBI has the ability and has in fact in the past by recently, retrospectively applied Pema to certain use cases. I would not be surprised if there is a situation where there is a retrospective applicability by virtue of a circular argument saying that, you know, we've not only thought about this in the past and we've had a very laissez-faire approach, but now we want to apply this sort of a rule. The danger is not that, you know, we've not regulated it thus far. The danger is that someone within the system might think that there might be a retrospective applicability. And that really presses retail investors into a hard to get out of position because you then have to pay compounding on the amounts that you kind of yielded out of these investments. There's also the pressure of whether you declare it or not. Now, that actually is another question, which is, what happens if you ban crypto currencies? You're effectively pushing it underground. You're not allowing the whole point of regulation to have the benefit in the industry. Sometime ago, the financial action task force had said that a complete ban on crypto pushing it underground will indeed result in the checks and measures such as we've got KYC, we've got anti-money laundering checks, all of those to fall away because you're pushing it underground, you're taking it out of the scope of regulation. What is awesome that because I believe, and I have a very strong view on this, that a ban will have a very direct impact of pushing the industry underground because people will not want to try and lose all of the money and that leaves them with very few options. We've seen this happen. You know, the thing is, we don't even have to guess what will happen. We've seen this happen. For example, in Argentina and now it's in Nigeria, in China, where the governments have tried to suppress crypto and that has directly given rise to a black market and an underground economy where the government has no insights or no understanding of what's happening in the country. But there's a large premium being applied on Bitcoin. So Bitcoin prices seem to first, as soon as there's a ban in the country, Bitcoin prices shoot up because of the underground demand. And when the Bitcoin prices shoot up, when there's a large premium, what happens is your regular people who hold crypto and cannot now run that in the regular economy are trying to get pushed into this. That's also one of the reasons why the premium goes up. That's to push the common people into the underground economy because now you get double or triple the regular rate. So, you know, when you see a 50% premium, you're pushed into that underground economy where there's no KYC, there are no ML policies. People are basically indirectly going to put people at risk because today in the whole exchange space that KYC, you are not transacted with anyone in on your. But the moment you push into the underground economy is completely anonymous and all the spheres that governments have actually come through after a ban. So, you know, it's already visible and, you know, if you can learn from other countries that have tried to suppress crypto, whether Bitcoin premiums seems to shoot up to 50% 70% pushing the regular population into the underground economy. Very interesting thought. And, you know, talking about that, you know, tracing of the movement of cryptocurrency. How difficult or easy is that? Say, I mean, some people say that, you know, what if, you know, terrorism is funded through these crypto currencies? So what do we do in that sense? The thing is, you know, because of the decentralized nature of, let's say, Bitcoin, you cannot stop a person from, you know, sending Bitcoin to someone else because you don't need a third party. That's the innovation of Bitcoin. It's peer to peer. I can send it to you without a third party involved. So you come and specifically tell me not to do it. I can do it. You can do it. Anyone can do it. The problem is to fund illegal activities and terrorism and all. Ultimately, they have to do something in the real world with that, which is where they'll have to convert it into cash. And the way to convert it into cash is either using exchanges like us, whether it's KYC or using the underground economy. Now, we come back to again, the same discussion. If the underground economy has liquidity, then sure you can do it. And when does liquidity come is when you erase the good ecosystem. But if you ensure a clean ecosystem, the underground economy never has liquidity. So these large amounts of money we think about in Bitcoin can never be in cash, which means they can never be used in that country. So till it is virtual, it's no use for someone who wants to use it for some nefarious activities in a country. The use case comes only when they can convert to cash. And that's the point at which governments all around the world are saying we'll catch them at that point when they try to convert it into cash to use for whatever activities they do. So this again, you know, we've come back to these, if these activities are happening, you're going to aid it by banning the good ecosystem. You're not going to suppress it. You're going to impact help them by pushing liquidity into that underground economy. So, you know, as we go along, we'll take some of the questions that are also coming to us. So, you know, there's a question which Jayesh has asked is that what will be your next move if government ban crypto crypto because one the bill is passed and law has been made, you cannot even fight against it. I think we have more or less answered this leader has answered this question, but you know, and he made it sound so difficult to even understand the things that have to be done. It's not that we will make it simpler but Akash what what what do you think will be the, you know, legal records for people like, you know, individuals who have, you know, invested money, or for national or for investors who have believed in national and neither then they can build a good ecosystem in the country. So that's actually a really interesting question and I think that there's no one answer to that. So let me try and split my answer into a couple of sub points. The first is a real investor really has no option but to follow the law because as Mr. right to point it out, the place where there seems to be regulatory intervention is the cash to coin or cash to crypto interface, which is when you're investing or you know, exiting crypto and your money is coming into or going out from bank account which is within the regulated financial system. So if the bill which is currently just a draft is passed and the way is currently, you know, and bizarre dance from allocated without any changes, you would then have to actually challenge the law based on various other grounds which are I think that's more of a discussion that we can leave for another time. But I think if there is a stakeholder engagement before the law is passed, there will be clear cowhouse for retail investors that would be a clear scheme, perhaps an amnesty scheme. And assuming that the amnesty scheme allows for people who invested in crypto visit. Then that would allow exit which is not under duress which is not from a position of vulnerability where you know every person is undergoing a distressed asset sale scenario which we discussed earlier. So if the law is passed in the current form, I think there are three lacuna in it which would essentially give rise to challenges just to very quickly give you a quick flavor of it. One is that this law doesn't seem to contemplate what happens from the foreign exchange standpoint. India has always been an exchange control economy. So we need to try and figure out what is the rationale behind a complete ban. And whether the balance of convenience so to speak is in favor of a complete ban which then puts to prejudice thousands if not millions of investors, or if it should have been a more regulated approach. I would not be surprised to see a challenge again before the Supreme Court of India if we do this because principally speaking, we had the RBI ban cryptocurrency by virtue of cutting off the flow funds to and through from crypto in 2018. The Supreme Court reversed that in 2019-2020. Now we seem to have a law which again overturns the tenants of the Supreme Court order. I would believe that if this legislation puts in a blanking ban it will be challenged and there's no option which people will have other than to challenge it. One can hope that what ends up happening is that between now and the time that there is the legislation passed as an unsurpassion process, even if people have to, you know, self declare or there's a requirement where people have to go through some sort of verification that would give the legitimacy that mirage and instead of being suggesting to say that you know you prevent people from getting pushed underground. In fact, even the financial action task force and said that if you're trying to combat the financing of terrorism, you'd rather take a regulation based approach than a ban based approach because you're still then ensuring that people are comfortable with the checks and measures that you impose rather than to push them underground and leave them option but to choose this unregulated mode of exchange. We'll have to wait and see that in what form and shape does the bill come in and hope, you know, the interest of everyone is taken care of. Neeraj, I'll come to you with a different question, you know, of the regulatory ones are there but, you know, let's talk about the fundamentals of a currency, you know, if we talk about it in any asset, you know, any type of, you know, this. So if a currency like in Indian rupee or a US dollar, you know, we look at economy, the GDP, you know, and that decides the exchange rate and then the money moves in and moves up or down. You know, very recently we saw that a couple of tweets from, you know, from Elon Musk and, you know, there was so much, you know, so much of movement in the prices. So, you know, what, I mean, what are the fundamentals of these currencies? So say as a steady investor, even if I want to do it, but, you know, if it is so sensitive to someone saying something by 1.5 billion dollars of Bitcoin, it moves up, you know, to 2-3 lakh rupees in Indian terms of whatever I think it moved up from 38 lakh to 42 lakh or something. So what's the fundamental? How do I be rest assured that, you know, if I'm investing in something, it's not going to be affected by unnecessary tweets or, you know, unnecessary events like these. I think, you know, the way to look, it might seem like a tweet by Elon Musk, but you know, what we should understand is if Elon Musk could have tweeted about gold and it wouldn't move because that tweet is not news. The moment he tweeted about Bitcoin, that became news. And every media in every part of the world, not just in one country, not just in one state or city of US or anywhere else, but every media, including our Indian media, everyone tweeted or spoke about it. So what did this happen? This gave a massive free advertisement to Bitcoin and the idea of cryptocurrency. So what you're talking about is what happens when you run a global advertisement campaign, all organically, which has never been done. This scale of advertisement has never happened for any other asset class in modern times. That's the reason why it moved and it moved by what? 10%, 15%. So then we have to see it's a very amazing thing. It's not a tweet that has moved it. It's the entire world's media, which is together with their old news effected change here. And the other thing is, why is it news is because more and more people are now getting to know about crypto. It's still about 100 million people in the world own cryptocurrencies or know about it. And that's still a very small. So there's a large number of people who are yet to come to Bitcoin or any other crypto. And when they come in large numbers at a short period of time, you will see this volatility. So crypto is always shown a short term fluctuation. Why? Because the market is still trying to understand what's the price of it. It's a new asset class. The market is still trying to price it as against the gold, which is there for hundreds of years as a large market cap of 12 trillion dollars versus crypto, which is about a trillion dollars. So when the entire world talks about it in a 24 hour or 48 hour period, I think a 10 to 15% fluctuation is like a expected outcome. So if you're a smart investor, the moment that happens, you should understand that, you know, this is going to go viral. A lot of new people are going to come in. Maybe I should get in at the right time. I need to come to you with a separate question because National has already answered this one. So, you know, there are many cryptocurrencies across the world. If I look at them, and already we have seen scams and Ponzi schemes and all this happening, obviously there are bad players. But there are then there are coins which are being, you know, which are, you know, I can see on coin DCX, I can see on Vazir X, but if I look at their back history, it's not that bright, you know, we we hear inside stories where you know the prices are increased artificially and the basics of how their mind are not very, are not very solid or unscrupulous methods are used or something. So how do you do you ensure that whatever points that are available on your platform are the ones which are genuine and how do you like, as a layman I do not understand what I want to enter. I would believe you. So how do I go about it. This is, so yes, you're right. There are 10 more than 10 pros and cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is one of them. And since it's public, it's a public blockchain concept, no Ethereum, there is Ethereum blockchain, there is polka dot blockchain, there is Bitcoin blockchain, all these are public blocks and be used by anyone. And anyone can create a token on that. Right. As long as people are able to trust the creators of the token, people can invest into the tokens and the currencies. So that's why it's a free world and anybody can create an N number of tokens and anybody can invest into those tokens. So yes, we have seen a couple of bad players in the industry. We have seen all these schemes being run in the industry. That of course, that that's why you know regulations are very important. That's why the regulations are very important to set the boundaries of what can be done and what cannot be done because of in every industry there are bad players. You see inside the trading stock market, you see, you see market management stock markets, but then there are regulators to control these activities. There are regulators who set the rules, who set the rules of the game and what what you can do what you can do rules and rules and then there are penalties etc. And that's how the bad actors are kept at bay from the markets. It's a different situation in the cryptocurrency world as well. As soon as regulators jump in and they say, okay, this can be done. This cannot be done. These are the, you know, these are the criteria, which actually we need to follow when they list cryptocurrencies on their platforms. Then that will automatically remove these bad players and the bad, you know, malpractices from the industry. So we as an exchange we follow. So, so before that, co-initiates go has roughly 12 to 13 tokens only, which we have listed and which we have decided at our end that will promote only 12 to 12 these 13 tokens in for the masses. So we have, of course, there are very elaborate criteria. First of all, we see the history of the tokens if they have been manipulated before. We see the market capitalization of the tokens in the market cap is big enough so that small money cannot just just change the prices overnight. And then we see the teams behind the projects. What kind of team? What are their intentions? What is their vision behind the project? What is the utility use case of the token? Why is this token being created? Is it just upon this team? What is the actual real-world use case, actual real-world utility of the token? And then we see the adoption of the token across the globe. How many exchanges has this token been listed on? What governments across the globe already recognize these tokens in one way, in one form or the other? So there are so many criteria. And keeping all these in mind, giving them scores, we have decided that we will only promote these 13 tokens as of now. And as in when the government regulates it, it gives us further guidelines on what factors they need to consider. Just like they have therefore stocks. What kind of companies can release their stocks in the public? It's very strict guidelines. So as soon as the government comes with those kind of guidelines, we will be very happy to implement, take that into account and become blind. Vishal, I'll come to you with the same question and also add on one more thing that in some of the questions that I have been told is that when I go through, say, a Vazir X or a coin D6, the key, the key of the crypto is not with the investor, but it's rather with the platform. So, you know, how dangerous is that or is it okay to find, you know, you hold it for us and then you can release it anytime. See, I think Neeraj started up on the whole listing aspect and it's more or less something that throughout the industry and throughout the world, exchanges follow certain criteria and guidelines. But if you look at it, see, in the crypto ecosystem, it's more or less, it's like saying you have to list 30, 40 websites on your exchange, which website is going to be more useful, better or, you know, which website is going to shut down tomorrow, it's very hard to see. Versus, let's say the traditional markets where you have a history and a balance sheet and, you know, these companies have already gone big before they go IPO. So it's a very different dynamic that we as an industry cater to, which is we're on the innovation side, which is why there might be more mistakes than compared to traditional market. But I definitely believe that with the right regulatory processes and approaches, we can reduce them, but you can't escape it. There are, I always tell them that, you know, always, one of the factors we do is look at the team behind these products or project and we also listen to our users. Many times, we don't want to list but our users want it. And we get like, you know, hundreds and thousands of requests saying list this because we want to be involved. So then you have to listen to the community. So that's the other thing. Now, coming to the whole key aspect of the, you know, private keys, the thing is, there are two things that you can do with the Bitcoin. I'll just consider Bitcoin out here. You can either custody it on your own, which is called self custody, or you could have a third party safely custody it for you, which is custodial. Now, as an exchange, we are custodial, which means we hold the cryptocurrency that belongs to you. But that does not mean you cannot, you know, hold it yourself. All you have to do is you have to withdraw it out of the exchange and to your own personal crypto wallet where you will hold the key to it. So it's a choice. You want to keep it with yourself. The benefits are you hold it. No one else has access to it. The bad thing is, what if you lose your private key? There's no way anyone in the world can help you recover. So that's the, you know, choice you have to make. And with the custodial like us, we make sure we custody it and we keep it safe. But there's always a risk you've seen of, you know, prior risk of some exchanges losing, getting hacked. So that risk exists. The way to mitigate this is to make sure that, you know, you see how long the exchange has been, you know, what are the safety measures they follow. So look at the history of the exchanges and then go. Many times what happens is fly by night operators, they just want to, you know, give you a good price, but they don't have the checks and stuff behind the scene to secure your assets. In such cases, maybe securing it on your own is better. So it's a matter of choice, but the best thing to have a choice. But, you know, like, say, in a stock exchange, I have so many brokerages tracking it and, you know, I have it listed and everything. I know it, but, you know, in cryptos, if there are so many, you know, currencies and which shows, you know, day by day, 5%, 6% interest. I mean, I as a layman may not know the team behind it or I may not know the actual story behind it. So, you know, isn't that somewhere a responsibility of exchange also kicks in. So, see, the thing is, that's what I said. If you do not want to go deep into this, the best thing is Bitcoin. It's something that everyone understands. It's an asset, it's proven over 10 years. So just use that. Everything else is really high risk. And that's for sure. And only if you know and have the time to invest by understanding what it is, because every crypto is different. If it was a blanket, it's not a currency, like I said, utility token. Now, every crypto has its own utility. Now, for me, a utility might seem very stupid, but for the world, it might be amazing. So what question is, can I as an exchange decide the future of a technology? Or, you know, which use case will emerge? Because if I can do that, I would rather build that on my own. It's just really difficult for me to understand whether, because a lot of these criteria, by the way, Bitcoin would have never been listed on any exchange. You've actually said we want to know the team behind it because the founder is anonymous. But yet today, Bitcoin is a trillion dollar ecosystem. So it's very hard for us. What we can do is just put it in front of people saying, these are the things, but now you have to do your research. That's the best way for you to invest in this sector. Akash, what do you want to add before we take some questions that we have got? I think the comparison which Nistral is making is the only thing which I would add too, which I think might not be a perfect comparison because, you know, the exchange essentially acts as an intermediary. Whereas with crypto exchanges, what ends up happening is that the exchange is not just an intermediary, but also a facilitator. Now, the issue here, which I think Indian regulations need to tackle is that we need to be very clearly delineate risk in what circumstances are the exchanges liable, if at all, and what circumstances are the investors liable. If the government feels that it's a very high risk investment, which I think everyone's very open about even Nistral's high risk meant for sophisticated investors. Then the government needs to allow people to invest because they don't even much like how they increase the entry criteria for portfolio management from $25,550 and then now for fraud. You just need to have different thresholds where the investor is either sophisticated by virtue of the amount which is invested or where the government says that these are the circumstances in which you agree to take on all the risk. Beyond that, I think it needs to be up to the people to invest and do what they choose. Banning them to protect them from a market that they will try and access in any way is rarely ever a successful tactic to try and stop people when you've got, we have seen this across multiple use cases and this is going to be no different. People will find a way to invest in it if you try and ban it. In fact, it just evokes more curiosity than anything else. So we have a few minutes left before we wrap up. So we'll take up some of the questions that have come in. So, Shibra has a question if you can give the mic to Shibra and Shibra, if you can ask a question please. Thank you, Saurav. Am I audible? Yeah, you are. Please go ahead. So my question, I mean, either Nishchal or Nishchal can take it up. I want to know this is from an investor's point of view. Apart from investing, what are the other use cases of Bitcoin that have emerged in the recent past? Because from what I can understand, from 2017, late 2017 when Bitcoin had its last run up till now, not a lot of use cases have emerged except for the point that the industry keeps saying that it has become an asset class, which is understandable. But apart from that, you know, an investor, where else can an investor actually use the cryptocurrency that he or she is invested in? If there are not enough use cases, then do you think that the industry should proactively work towards creating those use cases? Because I mean, I'm not sure till when the selling point of it being an asset class can work for a small investor, for a retail investor. I'll just take part of it and maybe Neeraj, if you want to elaborate on this whole thing. But it's a good question. The thing is, if you look at Bitcoin, it's not while we say it's an asset and it's a store of value. The biggest use case is the store of value and you do not have another store of value, which is globally accessible with no geographic barriers. It is the innovation of Bitcoin itself, the fact that now you have programmable store of value, which anyone anywhere in the world can access using a mobile phone and can custody it on their own, self custody. That does not exist. So what we are asking about is why do you want more use cases when something that was virtually not possible 10 years ago has been made possible by this innovation and Bitcoin is the symbol and the whole crypto that started this. So the world what they're showing with Bitcoin is we trust this as a store of value because it's movable and I can keep it on my own. Gold, I have to carry it. You have 10 kilos of gold, either you give it to a third party where you don't know how or when you will get access to it or if you have to physically keep gold, that's one way. The other is you have this, which is just on your mobile phone. So now you have a programmable store of value. The use cases now will emerge once all the infrastructure that is needed is built out. Today we are in that state where the infrastructure is still being built out or a decentralized ecosystem. Once the infrastructure building phase is done, then we will see the use case emerge. It's like the internet could not have actually emerged as these use cases, the early days of the internet. People said, is it all about email? Is it all about chat? But we are seeing all the use cases of the internet emerge even today. Why? Because the last 10 years internet was laying out the foundation, our mobile phone, your access to cheaper internet, all of these, the cables, even the laying of the cables to get internet to all parts of the world. These were the infrastructure line phases and that's happening in crypto right now. The reason, the thing is we are all experiencing it, we are not experiencing it. As a generation, this is the first time we are experiencing a new financial internet being laid out. So eventually more use cases will emerge but right now the whole fact that there's an innovation in front of us. That itself is the reason why these valuations are, the moment more use cases rise, Bitcoin is easily going to overtake gold also. It will go over 10 trillion dollars someday when more use cases emerge. So that's something I think we should all be aware of. Before we question it, we should look at where it is today and it's at a very beautiful phase where we can get involved early. Later on when the use cases come, we are already all late to the party. Alright, I have two more questions I'll quickly ask them. So one is, you know, the government is mulling over introducing its own digital version of INR. I want to understand that such a token will it qualify as a cryptocurrency because it will still be, it will not be decentralized. So in that sense, will it just be a digital version of Piat or will it qualify as a cryptocurrency? So should I remind if I take that one? Yeah, yeah, please. Last week, the RBI's governor Shashikant had asked, he had said that the RBI was working on some guidelines to have a central bank back digital currency. So these central bank back digital currencies are actually are a departure from the original concept of how crypto currencies were invested because they were intended to be decentralized. Everybody would have a common ledger where they were able to transfer the currency from person to person. Each person was able to validate that transaction and it was intended not to have any sort of hub and spoke model. Now on this new, the central bank back digital currency model, what appears to happen is that it's a hybrid model. So it's essentially a region currency with the central validator, which is the bank. And I think that there is no way of looking at this other than to consider it to be a quasi cryptocurrency in so far as because it's a fiat currency equivalent, right? You have to have the central bank back and issue those particular coins or tokens. So in so far as, yes, it is based on the blockchain technology. It is a representation of stored value and the value is fixed at whatever it is in terms of how we pay it to the repeat. But that's why the similarities end with the blockchain. So this is actually going to be a relatively unique concept because of the manner in which it's going to play out with any sovereign currency. I think, you know, there's no divorcing the role of the central bank. But, you know, the, I think India should definitely build its own CBDC, own digital IANA because the advantages of having that is different from the settlement time. If you see today banks, the settlement period between banks is huge. The moment you get a digital IANA, you have instant settlement. So all these cases of, you know, your money getting stuck in between two banks for five days before they say we'll reach and sell and give you the money back that will just disappear. And, you know, the settlement will be instant between bank. So I think we should definitely build that as a nation. Okay, yeah. I would also like to answer or address both of your questions. The first one was about further use cases apart from as an asset class. So for that, I have just went one very small point. We have so many different cryptocurrencies having different use cases in the world. Payment is one thing, you know, utilities, smart contracts, it's smart contract based, you know, logics built on top of cryptocurrency. That is there. While for the Bitcoin, I think there is no further use case required as such being asset class being restored, which is which has superior properties like portability, you know, all that. And globally, people are already trusting it as an asset class. So I think that's that's a good enough proposition for Bitcoin itself. Secondly, the second question was about pardon me, your second question, please. The digital currency. Yes, so central banks digital currency. In my opinion, on the one hand, Bitcoin and others were born out of complete, you know, the concept of freedom like no government control at all. Completely free from the rules of the government. Right. And on the other hand, we have the fear currencies, which are completely controlled by the government, 100% controlled by the government, the rules of the game are fully built and created by the government. These are two extremes. I think the transition would have a CVDC in between where it's a mix of both some properties of a decentralized free world, some properties of the, you know, controlled currency regime. And that's how that's what that's what CVDC is represented. You cannot go from a completely controlled currency system to a completely independent and non controlled currency. There has to be something in between. And that is what I think CVDC represents. All right. Thank you. Just one last question. This is an industry question. I was reading about in one of the news reports I was reading about this association that has been formed by crypto entrepreneurs, which is known as association for blockchain and crypto and digital asset digital. Yeah, asset entrepreneurs, the short form of which is ABC. So I want to know if either was he rex or pointy safe as part of it. And if it is then in what way is this association, you know, trying to lobby, you know, with the government to kind of stay off the likely I think it's still early to talk about the whole association right now. We're all part of IMA and there's a subcommittee under that BACC. And we're all part of that, whether we'll build a new separate one or not. I think all time will all decide but right now as an industry, we're all under this BACC, which is under IMA and on our end, what we're doing is, look, we're trying to meet as many regulators. MPs, whoever is involved. And as an industry and also we are trying to tell all our, you know, customers and people in crypto that right to your MP on why you believe India should regulate and not ban crypto. Because when we as a nation, there are 10 million people in India who hold cryptocurrency and people get surprised when they hear that because they think maybe a few thousand people are involved. There are over 10 million. That's over a crore of Indians. So when all of us tell our leaders that you know why we should regulate and not ban, our leaders will listen to us. So as an industry, we're doing this at the grassroots level. It's not going to be about one or two companies getting together and solving this for our nation. All of us are going to do this together. And so one of the biggest thing we're doing is that rallying and telling everyone in the country, tell what you believe. If people of India want a ban shot, but I believe that maximum people who understand the technology do not want a ban. They want regulation. They are not looking for anonymity. They're looking for participation. And I think that's what as an industry we're driving the most. Rallying our people to tell their respective MPs on what they believe from the government. If we don't speak, the government will never know. That is the biggest thing that we're doing as an industry. Alright, thank you. Okay, we have run out of time, but we have a couple of interesting questions. So I'll just read them out and you know, we'll, so there is a question from Kuldip. He says that suppose government doesn't ban crypto assets but allow only the institutions to trade or deal with it just like Hong Kong has recently proposed. How will that impact exchange and crypto cryptocurrency retail market? Yeah, so that's, that's a plausible scenario and good to start, right? It might, the government may believe that we do not want to expose the whole country to a volatile asset class, but rather selectively just, you know, have experts who are investment experts first experiment and then probably at a later point in time go for the complete public access. That, that I mean, in terms of exchanges, of course, we'll have to, so the effect might be completely different. We, of course, our products are cleared for the retail person, etc. On the other hand, this is a different kind of services, KYC is different kinds of trading instruments. I think, you know, when needed, it's time to somehow fit things into what will happen. I think it's a very elitist approach to even think about, you know, only allowing companies and not the people of India to participate. And I think as a nation, we should not even, you know, be okay with this, where we allow companies to deal with something so that later, I think the people of India should be involved in this. I don't think it's a company's domain and companies should be allowed and we are not. I don't think that line of thought should even exist in our country. But I think, you know, that won't be even democratic, right Akash? You know, if someone is selectively given, I mean, and they gain the gains and then we are allowed the time retail investors can't even buy a small piece of it. No, so unfortunately, I want to disagree with you on that one. So it will be democratically because there's a concept called intelligible differentiate. So when you're able to intelligently differentiate between two nuanced classes of people, because of sophistication, for example, I mean, there's an investor say who wants to invest in a portfolio management scheme. Or they want to invest in an alternative investment fund. We don't allow people to invest less than a crore in an alternative investment fund today because we believe that people who have a crore inherently have the level of sophistication. So one may say, why do you have such barriers to entry based on monetary thresholds, whatever the barriers are, and I can see Nishchal shaking his head in disagreement saying this is this is this is rubbish. But those criteria of how we distinguish is sophisticated versus unsophisticated investor will have to be determined. So I think the caveat of the rule has to be adopted in this industry because truly, if the buyer is not aware of the risks, you should not be investing in it. So if the government says that, you know, you got to have the reams of disclaimers that are signed off by the buyer and show me the Nishchal. No, neither would actually shy away from that. The reason why I'm laughing is even to prove intelligence, the simplest is years of experience and most companies in India wouldn't have the experience of an individual in India who's been into crypto. There are people in India, individuals who've been into crypto for five to seven years. So even if we look at the intelligence level, I think the people of India are more intelligent than the corporates today in crypto. I can't say about the traditional markets, but our crypto, I think every individual 22 to 25 year old will be teams of corporate, you know, 10 people by just share experience or industry. So I think I'm not laughing about the money part, but I think intelligence, it will be the people of India who will win. It will not be corporate out here. I think that leads us to the point of saying the question which needs to be determined here is how do we determine who is sophisticated enough and who has the risk appetite to invest in cryptocurrency and and delineate those from the retail investors who are involved by saying, Okay, this looks like it's got a great return. Because I think the only intent of regulation and I think the legislative intent has always been with whether it be the RBI or to try and protect the gullible small time investor from investing in something that offers very high returns but offers risk which they are not able to appreciate or which is beyond their appetite. I think we have really run out of time so we'll have to finish it here but thank you everyone. You know, thank you, Akash. Thank you for joining us today. And it's good to hear views from of all sides because what I believe is a healthy dialogue a discussion can only lead to a robust, you know, ecosystem of crypto. As you said, there are not only currencies, there are other things and there are other benefits also. And I hope that, you know, all this discussion, not only here but across the nation and with other stakeholders will lead to a lead to a place where we actually could see something which is which promises to be the future possibly. So thank you everyone and thank you to the attendee.