Indian finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, had an argument on Tuesday regarding the crypto’s worldwide regulation to restrict the hazards posed by terrorist financing and money laundering. She delivered these remarks at a seminar conducted at the ongoing Washington-based spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund. She stated that in her view the largest apprehension for the entirety of the nations would be the laundering of money that is utilized for terrorist financing.

The solution is in Regulation

Sitharaman mentioned that the sole way to address the problem of crypto is the tech-based regulation, and this should be done straightforwardly on a radical basis. The finance minister put stress on the success of the country in the digital space and the endeavors of the authorities in constructing the digital infrastructure-based agenda for the country during the recent decade, highlighting the mounting tech adoption of the government throughout the pandemic term.

In addition to this, she revealed – while speaking at the elite panel discussion conducted by the IMF – that the regulation of the crypto assets is almost impossible till the time they are being utilized for non-authoritative purposes through unhosted wallets. In terms of the implementation of taxes over money made via digital asset transfers, the finance minister expressed that it counts to be the method to evaluate the funds’ origin as well as track them, however, does not make them legal.

CBDC vs crypto

She cited the benefits provided by the CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) as compared with the crypto. According to her, the country’s CBDC project will commence this year. As indicated by the latest survey, one out of every four businesses across the fintech industry of India would turn into a unicorn, and the cumulative number of unicorns has already touched 20 during the previous three years. The remarks of Sitharaman were witnessed just weeks following the country’s implementation of a 30% tax on the gains from crypto trading.

Not that convenient, the RAND study signifies

Several cryptos have been experiencing infighting and uncertainty with an increase in their popularity. Ultimately, it might be considered more difficult by the terrorist institutions to utilize crypto, as per a study conducted on the behalf of the RAND Corporation. They moved on to assert that if the intelligence community and law enforcement go hand in hand to regulate the crypto space, they may restrict Terrorist groups from using crypto for funding their operations.