oppn parties Cryptocurrencies: Making A Comeback

News Snippets

  • RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat calls for one temple, one well and one crematorium to do away with deep divisions in the hindu society
  • Staff unrest plagues craft beer manufacturer Bira as current and formaer employess allege delays in salary and other payments
  • Intel appoints India-origin Sachin Katti as CTO & AI chief
  • Sebi says there is no manufacturing activity reported from Gensol's EV plant in Pune
  • Shooting WC: Former world champion drops to last in 10m air rifle individual event as his rifle malfunctions
  • Shooting World Cup: Arjun Babuta misses gold by 0.1 pont, settles for silver in 10m air rifle while Radrankksh Patil and Arya Borse win silver in 10m air rifle mixed event
  • IPL: MI beat CSK as Rohit Sharma (76 no) and Suryakumar Yadav (68 no) make short work of PKBS bolwers. CSK, with 2 points from 8 matches, have reached a point of no return in this years' competition
  • IPL: RCB beat PKBS by 7 wickets as Virat Kohli (73 no) and D Padikkal (61) sizzle
  • After Bangladesh commented on the riots in bengal over the Waqf bill, the Indian government has asked it protect the minorities in its own country and stop commenting on India's internal affairs
  • PM Modi discussed collaboration in technical and innovation fields with Tesdla owner Elon Musk, who is visiting India before the imminent entry of his firm Starlink in the country
  • Murshidabad returning to normal after clashes over the Waqf bill, internet restored, curfew lifted
  • The murder of a 17-year-old boy sparked protests in Delhi's north-east area Seelampur
  • Allahabad HC stayed the demolition of a mosque in UP's Fatehpur after the district authorities order for razing it was challenged by the Masjid Waqf committee
  • Hyderabad Police pick up an alleged fraud accused from a hotel in Kolkata but Kolkata Police not kept in the loop. Relatives of the man file a missing complaint and FIR
  • An ICU technician was held in Gurugram's Medanta Hospital for sexually assaulting a patient
RSS chief Mohan Bhagawat calls for 'one temple, one well',as well as one crematorium, to end caste differences
oppn parties
Cryptocurrencies: Making A Comeback

By Sunil Garodia

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.

This June, cryptocurrency Bitcoin once again breached the $10000 barrier. It was after one year that Bitcoin reached this level and it was triple of what it was fetching in 2018. So why are investors once again flocking to buy the digital 'coin'? Why is there a renewed interest in something that is neither widely accepted nor legal in most parts of the world? Ever since Bitcoin touched dizzying heights (it touched $19783 in December 2017), financial regulators the world over, especially in emerging economies, have advised governments to ban it.

In fact, in India, a committee headed by ex-finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has recently put its report in the public domain. The report recommends that India should ban mining, holding, investing in or even providing services to facilitate any or all of these. In the same breath, the report also recommends that the government can think of floating its own digital currency if it so wishes. Hence, the committee is neither against the technology nor its viability. It is essentially against the private ownership of companies that facilitate these cryptocurrencies.

So is the cryptocurrency market maturing and more informed investors coming in after the initial hype that brought in the uninformed and the me-too walas, who more often than not burned their fingers and pockets? The present upswing, sans the hype, indicates as much. As Bitcoin outperforms other asset classes, even conservative fund managers and skeptics will not like to miss out. Further, cryptocurrency is being made mainstream with offerings from Facebook and JP Morgan.

Facebook has unveiled that it is going to launch its cryptocurrency Libra anytime soon. JP Morgan is also coming out with JPCoin. It needs reminding that James Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase had initially said that cryptocurrencies were a fraud but he later regretted making that statement. Other mainstream firms in the financial world are offering custodian services or online trading platforms, changing the nature of investment in crypto currencies.

Although trading volumes are nowhere near the high of 2017, the market structure has changed completely (there are less of speculators now and more of investors) and this bodes well for the stability of the asset. Benefits of the blockchain technology that drives the cryptocurrencies are being widely and increasingly recognized all over the world. If a worldwide standard is developed and financial regulators shed their opposition, the asset class may still emerge as the currency of the future.