As Indian Gov't Slaps Crypto With New Law, Survey Suggests 71% Have Low Faith in Digital Currency

India's central bank RBI had banned crypto till 2019 but the country's top court overruled it. As the number of crypto users has grown in two years, the federal government is now all set to introduce 'The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021'.

As the Indian government is all set to regulate cryptocurrency, an online survey conducted by a non-governmental online platform, "Localcircles" has observed that about 71 percent of Indians have low or zero trust in cryptocurrency.

Only one percent of surveyors have shown trust in digital currency.

The survey also suggests that nearly 54 percent do not want the federal government to legalise digital currencies but they want it to be taxed at par with digital assets held abroad.

Only 26% of those polled said cryptocurrencies should be legalised and then taxed in India, while the remaining 20% didn't have any view on it, it said.

The community social network said the survey's results are based on 56,000 citizen responses from 342 districts of India that were received over the last 15 days.

According to cryptocurrency exchanges, more than 100 million Indians are involved in the trade, with currency worth a total of around $80 billion.

Earlier this month, the Indian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance held a meeting with industry associations and experts on cryptocurrencies. A representative from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was also a part of the meeting.

Days after the meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the Sydney Dialogue on 18 November, urged nations to work together to halt the misuse of technological innovations like cryptocurrency.

"It is important that all democratic nations work together on this and ensure that it does not end up in the wrong hands, which can spoil our young," Modi stated in a tweet.

Disruptive technologies such as Block-chain and the Internet of Things, will have a profound impact in the way we live and work. They will require rapid adaptation in our workplaces: PM @narendramodi

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) February 19, 2018

The RBI Governor, Shaktikanta Das, later reiterated his concerns that the digital currency poses a "serious concern" in terms of macroeconomic and financial stability.