RBI Ban Maintained Even After Hearing Of Crypto Petition By Indian Supreme Court
On Tuesday, July 3, the Indian Supreme Court heard a petition against the crypto banking ban that was imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The petition was made by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). Members include major crypto exchanges in the country: Unocoin, Zebpay, and Wazirx.
On April 6, the central bank released a circular, banning all financial institutions under its control from servicing cryptocurrencies companies. The ban should be effective by July 5. Quite a number of industry participants have appealed against the ban. There are four additional petitions that are to be heard by the Supreme Court on July 20.
Nischal Shetty, founder, and CEO of Wazirx, shared with news.Bitcoin.com after the hearing on Tuesday that the Supreme court did not authorize a stay on RBI’s crypto banking ban. All petitions, including that of IAMAI, will be heard on July 20. He emphasized, “all eyes are on the 20th now.” He continued by saying: “ The IAMAI had [also] submitted a representation to the RBI which was a detailed document explaining blockchain, cryptos and how they function. The RBI has said it will respond to that within 7 days… .The representation was made with the belief that if the RBI gets a deep understanding of blockchain and crypto then they may go easy on the ban and think about regulations.”
Industry participants were before the hearing, hopeful that the court might grant a stay on the RBI ban. Still, major crypto exchanges in the country keep trying to find banking opportunities.
In order to allow its customers to buy and sell crypto through its services, Wazirx has in a project to launch a P2P crypto transfer service that will bypass the RBI ban. As Shetty told news.Bitcoin.com, the new service will be launched when banks stop providing services to crypto exchanges. He gives more details thus: “If banks stop providing services after July 6th then we’ll need to launch P2P. All eyes are on banks now to see what they will do. Do they wait for the July 20th hearing or do they go ahead and implement the ban on transactions from July 6th onwards?”
