The Reserve Bank of India reiterated its support for a restrictive ban strategy on cryptocurrencies, advising banks not to hold or trade in crypto assets

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reiterated its support for a regulatory strategy of "containment and a tendency to prohibit" regarding crypto assets in a document submitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, stating that "prohibition" remains one of the policy options recognized by the international regulatory framework. The RBI suggested that banks and other regulated financial institutions should not hold, trade, or provide exposure to crypto assets and privately issued stablecoins to avoid potential contagion risks to the financial system.

The RBI stated that implementing traditional financial regulation on crypto assets could mislead the market, granting "legitimacy" to speculative assets that lack actual economic value and creating a false sense of security for users. The RBI also warned that the widespread use of stablecoins could undermine India's monetary sovereignty, weaken the transmission mechanism of monetary policy, disrupt the payment system, and pose risks to financial stability. Therefore, it recommended prioritizing the development of sovereign digital payment infrastructure such as Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Additionally, the RBI questioned the relevant rankings claiming "India is the country with the highest global crypto adoption rate," arguing that the data from private blockchain analytics firms has methodological flaws. It pointed out that there are currently 54 crypto service providers registered with the FIU in India, with approximately 39.3 million users who have completed KYC verification holding crypto assets worth about 20.437 billion rupees. It should be clearly distinguished between speculative crypto assets and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) such as government bonds and corporate bonds to avoid impacting the innovation of financial asset tokenization.