Supreme Court of India Orders Agencies to Regulate Bitcoin
Government fear of bitcoin is palpable, and the petition speaks to how an emerging trend of crypto money if unchecked and unregulated is threat to exchequers money and financial sovereignty of the country, emphasis added. Exchequers are holdovers from British colonial rule, and essentially act as a sole spending authority – a kind of central government fund made from taxation.
The petition comes at the end of a tough month for Bitcoiners in India. More official statements about cryptocurrency ills continue to be spread by government officials at the highest levels, and its tabloid press is full of stories conflating bitcoin with crime.
According to The Economic Times, the Supreme Court responded to the petition in the affirmative, and has “issued notice to the ministries of Finance, Law and Justice, Information Technology, market regulator SEBI and the RBI, on the plea which also sought setting up of a panel to frame a mechanism to regulate the flow of Bitcoin.”
