On cryptocurrencies India is choosing to incrementally confuse

If the government decides to ban cryptocurrencies, it is going to have to fight an uphill battle as banning them will lead to a profusion of illegal ways in which people access them.

When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget 2022 speech, said that the government would be taxing profits made from cryptocurrencies, there was much jubilation among crypto market participants who thought this was a step towards legalising cryptocurrencies.

This was considered a major break from India’s previous policy of curbing cryptocurrency transactions. In 2018, the RBI effectively banned cryptocurrencies in India by ordering banks to not deal in cryptocurrencies themselves and stop providing services to any person or entity dealing with cryptocurrencies. This, in essence, not only de-linked cryptocurrencies from banking services but also from the rupee, since conversion was no