“Cashless India”, the Digital India Program of the Indian government, was announced over an year ago with the vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and familiarize the country with digital currency and the future demise of cash. Thus, the Central Bank of India is currently looking into digitalizing the fiat rupee in the near future.
According to the Reserve Bank of India’s executive director, Sudarshan Sen, the bank is looking into different possibilities of developing and offering a digital currency. Though he stated that the bank is not “comfortable” with bitcoin and in general, non-fiat cryptocurrencies, the growth of India’s bitcoin market has propelled the country into the ministry of finance launching a formal digital currency committee that has the task of proposing and studying all possibilities related to the legality, regulation and creation of digital rupee.
As many countries and executives, like Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, have expressed their concerns towards the trading of bitcoin and digital cryptocurrencies, RBI has warned that the usage of non-fiat money can result into a catastrophe in terms of regulation and the current boom of cryptocurrency prices. In addition, the speculation of renowned Economics professors, like Robert Shiller about the eventual burst of the “bitcoin” bubble, may hinder the development of digital cryptocurrencies in countries like India.