Indian State to Help Cryptocurrency Business Grow

An Indian Minister said that one of the states in the country is working towards protecting businesses operating without a regulatory framework in India. The plan includes cryptocurrency exchanges and crypto-accepting companies.

Priyank Kharge, India’s Social Welfare Minister, said that the Karnataka state government is working on setting up an Innovation Authority. The goal is to protect friendly technology businesses that are operating under regulatory requirements.

The minister said that technologies are growing faster and Indian policies are trying to catch up with them. According to Mr. Kharge, rather than banning a people-friendly business due to the regulations, the Innovation Authority needs to come up with a faster policy framework.

Mr. Kharge said:
“For example, bitcoins are traded in restaurants in Bengaluru, and we will need to interact with the government and get a regulatory clarity instead of banning those technologies for which regulations are not yet in place.”

The minister also referred to the recent arrest of Unocoin founders. Unocoin is one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges based in Bengaluru. The exchange installed a cryptocurrency ATM in a mall by ignoring the crypto banking ban ordered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central banking authority.

The Bengaluru cyber crime department seized the ATM machine and arrested the company’s founders, CFO Harish BV and CEO Sathvik Vishwanath. The accusations claimed that the founders were not given an approval or the permission to set up an ATM.

Meanwhile, The Cyber Crime department of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) said:
“The ATM kiosk installed by Unocoin in Bengaluru’s Kempfort Mall has not taken any permission from the state government and is dealing in cryptocurrency outside the remit of the law.”