Sidharth Sogani, a Certified Bitcoin Professional and CEO at CREBACO Global Inc, a credit rating firm for exchanges, blockchains and coin offerings, has argued that it’s clear the Indian government hasn’t figured out how Bitcoin (BTC) works.
There’s a new proposal that aims to ban Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies in India. It was actually introduced in July 2019 by the nation’s government officials and will be challenging the Indian Supreme Court’s March 2020 decision – which had effectively overruled the reserve bank’s ban on offering services to cryptocurrency firms.
Sogani explained:
“We can’t regulate something which is regulated by its own protocol. It’s a program, a layer over the internet. How can you stop the internet?”
Indeed, distributed systems expert Andreas Antonopoulos has argued and explained on many occasions how it’s practically not possible to ban Bitcoin because of its decentralized nature and because it’s just a software protocol that can be run by almost anyone with access to computers and the Internet.
Sogani added:
“During COVID-19, companies are laying off people, but the blockchain and crypto industry is getting funded, it is hiring, and it is growing.”
While it’s true that the blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) space is growing steadily on a global level, there are many scams and other serious issues the sector has been facing during these past few years. Many industry participants are advocating for, and working on the development of a comprehensive and effective regulatory framework for crypto-assets.
Sogani claims:
“Bitcoin has proved its relevance by being one of the most reliable alternative investments during this time.”
He confirmed that when the RBI had banned cryptos, local P2P exchanges were increasingly being used by traders to buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC) and other virtual currencies.
Sogani argued that this suggests that RBI’s ban “could not impact Bitcoin at all.” He claims that the ban just impacted trades made with fiat currencies, and not the pseudonymous cryptocurrency.
As reported, P2P Bitcoin (BTC) marketplaces such as Paxful and BitBuddy have recently reported increased activity in India. This, as the local blockchain job market is beginning to take off.