Tag: Blockchain

  • CM Patel launches new IT policy as Gujarat prepares for technological revolution

    AHMEDABAD: Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel announced a new Gujarat IT and ITeS policy today to promote rapid and inclusive growth in the IT sector in the state. This new policy will be in force for five years i.e. from 2022 to 2027.

     “I strongly believe that this policy will help us contribute significantly to one of the eight dreams of Prime Minister, Narendrabhai Modi – Berozgari semukt, Rozgari se yukt,” the Chief Minister said.  He stated that this policy is also aimed at realising the vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Gujarat to Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ in the Information Technology sector.

    This IT / ITeS policy (2022-27) is envisioned to transform the state’s information technology landscape in the IT ecosystem of Gujarat. The Chief Minister expressed confidence that Gujarat would become a “Destination of Choice” for the IT ecosystem by strengthening various aspects to make Gujarat one of theleading states in the field of information technology.

    The Chief Minister said that the Indian IT sector under the enterprising leadership of Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi has steered our nation to a leadership position in the global IT landscape in terms of employment and economic value creation.

    He further said that the state government has envisaged the creation of a conducive business ecosystem by formulating a robust policy framework and introducing simplified procedural requirements for setting up IT operations in the State.

    Explaining the objectives of Gujarat IT/ITes Policy in detail, the Chief Minister said that the objectives are to create high skilled, industry-ready IT talent pool; provide a state-of-the-art IT Infrastructure; develop a unique and simplified incentive scheme; establish a robust cloud ecosystem in the State and foster research & development in new and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Quantum computing, Blockchain, etc.

    He further said that the new policy also aims to increase Gujarat’s annual exports in the IT sector from Rs.3,000 crore to Rs.25,000 crore and create more than 1 lakh new employments in the IT and ITeS sector.

    The Chief Minister also added that Gujarat is striving to get a place in the top five states of the country in the field of IT. He said that the new policy aims to make Gujarat a leader in world-class IT infrastructure, data centers, and the availability of innovation centers in emerging technology.

    With Chief Minister representatives of 9 nationally and internationally renowned IT organizations were also present on the occasion.

  • Is crypto a threat to fiat currency? Or future of money?

    Express News Service

    BENGALURU: Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person or persons’ goal behind inventing Bitcoin — the first decentralized form of digital currency in 2008 — was to create an electronic peer-to-peer cash system without any intermediaries such as the government financial system or a company. Nakamoto’s white paper on Bitcoin stated that the transactions would be tracked through a blockchain, a ledger, like those used by financial institutions, except that this ledger would be distributed across an entire network, with exact duplicates held by all participants and visible to all, secured by cryptographic means. There would never be more than 21 million Bitcoins, the mythical Nakamoto had vouched.

    With a value of little over a single cent back then (2008), Bitcoin today has become the fastest asset to reach a market cap of $1 trillion, according to a recently published secondary research paper on the CryptoTech market in India.

    There are around 15 million Indians who have invested in crypto currencies worth Rs 1,500 crore and there are 350 start-ups that operate in the blockchain and crypto space. This despite the fact that private cryptocurrency is under no government regulation and remains a grey area.

    Express IllustrationRED-FLAGGEDThe Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has consistently red-flagged private cryptocurrency and the impact of this burgeoning unregulated decentralised financial ‘asset’ as a potential threat to financial stability of the country. ‘”We have serious and major concerns on cryptocurrency, which we have conveyed to the government,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said last month. In February this year, he had voiced his concern on the issue.

    In 2018, the RBI had banned trading of cryptocurrency, which was later overruled by the Supreme Court. The Crypto-currency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 which is expected to formalise ‘Central Bank Digital Currency’ (CBDC) as a legal digital currency, is in the final stages.

    Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on August 16, had stated that the Union Cabinet was soon expected to take up a Bill to regulate cryptocurrency and its rising market in India. An inter-ministerial panel, headed by former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, recently submitted a report seeking a ban on cryptocurrencies and authorising a digital currency of the RBI.

    Cryptocurrency has also been flagged by law enforcement agencies for use in illegal and criminal activities like money laundering, illegal fundraising, fraud, pyramid schemes and drug trafficking. China recently banned trading in cryptocurrency raising concerns around its energy-intensive mining and national security.

    INVESTORS VOUCH FOR ITThe voices of change in the age of digitisation, however, defy the conservative logic of ‘safety’ in financial instruments and urge the government to allow people to exploit their money to best use as they deem fit. Crypto investors vouch for its underlying blockchain application, which makes all transactions verifiable and immutable.

    It is largely because of the blockchain technology, supported by Know Your Customer (KYC) norms, that cryptocurrency has positioned itself globally as an alternative financial system that does not require a centralized authority and helps users own money and make secure payments anonymously.

    “Let the government tax cryptocurrency like commodities or assets, but allow trade,” said Dr Akash Rajpal (47), who vouches for investment in cryptocurrency. “I look at it as a hedge and with a high-risk reward angle. I put about 5-10 per cent of my investments in crypto and only in underlying fundamental coins,” says Rajpal.

     He was first introduced to crypto at Singularity University, NASA, in 2012 when it was trading at $3. “I was interested in it due to the underlying blockchain concept,” he added. The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), in association with WazirX, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the country, in its just-released report titled ‘Crypto Industry in India’, has shed light on how the Indian cryptocurrency market is on an exponential rise.

    “As more and more young Indian investors are excited to explore newer investment options, they are adopting cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polygon to make investments that promise them viable returns,” the report states.

    One of the key prognosis of the Nasscom report is that the CryptoTech industry will reach $241 million by 2030 in India, and $2.3 billion by 2026 globally. According to the report, more than 60 per cent of states in India are emerging as cryptotech adopters and, with over 15 million retail investors, the industry is increasingly attracting start-ups to adopt cryptotech.

    ATTRACTIVE TO GEN-ZWhat makes cryptocurrencies attractive to risk prone Gen-Z is its transparency, decentralised character and volatility. The value of cryptocurrency is completely notional and dependent on faith. The price follows the laws of demand and supply. In the absence of regulatory control and oversight, market manipulation can occur, which introduces volatility.

    “Crypto is primed to take our Prime Minister’s Digital India mission forward. In fact, our number of users from Tier-II and Tier-III cities have grown by 2,648 per cent and contributed to 55 per cent of total signups on WazirX in 2021,” said Nischal Shetty, CEO, WazirX. “Crypto has immense potential to contribute to our $5 trillion economy vision, and in the coming years, we’ll see crypto overcome the financial barriers for rural India, create access to jobs,” he added.

    SOME CRYPTO STATS*Over 12,000 crypto currencies exist today*Total crypto market cap: $1.96 trillion

    LEGAL HURDLESIn 2017, a top-level inter-ministerial committee was set up to analyse issues associated with virtual currencies and propose appropriate actions. The committee’s 2019 report highlights several risks associated with such decentralized virtual currencies by private parties, including risks of volatility, lack of regulation, technology-based risks such as phishing and Ponzi schemes, illegal and criminal use (such as terrorist financing and money laundering)

    In June this year, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) had issued a show cause notice to WazirX under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, involving cryptocurrency transactions worth Rs 2,790.74 crore. The ED said that it had initiated the probe on the basis of a money laundering investigation into Chinese-owned illegal online betting applications. In his reply, WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty had said that they were “in compliance with all applicable laws.”

    BITCOIN WAS FIRST USED TO BUY PIZZAOn May 22, 2010, Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 Bitcoins at Papa John’s to buy himself two pizzas. Back then, his Bitcoins were worth only $40. But, since the crypto currency was a non-entity in the commercial world, Hanyecz reached out to the Bitcointalk community and openly traded his Bitcoins to anyone who would buy him these pizzas

    FYI: You don’t have to buy a whole Bitcoin, which is worth around Rs 34 lakh. You can buy a fraction of BTC (or any crypto) for as low as Rs 100

    STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE INVESTING IN CRYPTODo thorough due diligenceRead a project’s whitepaper and its use cases, roadmap and progressCheck the team’s background, their social media activityCheck if it’s listed on legitimate exchangesInvest based on risk appetite 

    BITCOIN AS AN INVESTMENT OPTION?Fixed supply of 21 million, i.e., only 21 million Bitcoins will ever be createdDigital asset which is not limited to any country, or entity, but available to anyone around the globeSlowly emerging as an alternative asset class which offers a high-risk, high-reward investment optionImportant to understand the high-risk high-reward aspect and invest based on risk appetite

  • EXPLAINER | Is crypto a threat to fiat currency? Or future of money?

    Express News Service

    BENGALURU: Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person or persons’ goal behind inventing Bitcoin — the first decentralized form of digital currency in 2008 — was to create an electronic peer-to-peer cash system without any intermediaries such as the government financial system or a company.

    Nakamoto’s white paper on Bitcoin stated that the transactions would be tracked through a blockchain, a ledger, like those used by financial institutions, except that this ledger would be distributed across an entire network, with exact duplicates held by all participants and visible to all, secured by cryptographic means.

    There would never be more than 21 million Bitcoins, the mythical Nakamoto had vouched.

    With a value of little over a single cent back then (2008), Bitcoin today has become the fastest asset to reach a market cap of $1 trillion, according to a recently published secondary research paper on the CryptoTech market in India.

    There are around 15 million Indians who have invested in crypto currencies worth Rs 1,500 crore and there are 350 start-ups that operate in the blockchain and crypto space.

    This despite the fact that private cryptocurrency is under no government regulation and remains a grey area.

    Express IllustrationRED-FLAGGED

    The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has consistently red-flagged private cryptocurrency and the impact of this burgeoning unregulated decentralised financial ‘asset’ as a potential threat to financial stability of the country.

    “We have serious and major concerns on cryptocurrency, which we have conveyed to the government,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said last month.

    In February this year, he had voiced his concern on the issue.

    In 2018, the RBI had banned trading of cryptocurrency, which was later overruled by the Supreme Court.

    The Crypto-currency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 which is expected to formalise ‘Central Bank Digital Currency’ (CBDC) as a legal digital currency, is in the final stages.

    Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on August 16, had stated that the Union Cabinet was soon expected to take up a Bill to regulate cryptocurrency and its rising market in India.

    An inter-ministerial panel, headed by former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, recently submitted a report seeking a ban on cryptocurrencies and authorising a digital currency of the RBI.

    Cryptocurrency has also been flagged by law enforcement agencies for use in illegal and criminal activities like money laundering, illegal fundraising, fraud, pyramid schemes and drug trafficking.

    China recently banned trading in cryptocurrency raising concerns around its energy-intensive mining and national security.

    INVESTORS VOUCH FOR IT

    The voices of change in the age of digitisation, however, defy the conservative logic of ‘safety’ in financial instruments and urge the government to allow people to exploit their money to best use as they deem fit.

    Crypto investors vouch for its underlying blockchain application, which makes all transactions verifiable and immutable.

    It is largely because of the blockchain technology, supported by Know Your Customer (KYC) norms, that cryptocurrency has positioned itself globally as an alternative financial system that does not require a centralized authority and helps users own money and make secure payments anonymously.

    “Let the government tax cryptocurrency like commodities or assets, but allow trade,” said Dr Akash Rajpal (47), who vouches for investment in cryptocurrency. “I look at it as a hedge and with a high-risk reward angle. I put about 5-10 per cent of my investments in crypto and only in underlying fundamental coins,” says Rajpal.

     He was first introduced to crypto at Singularity University, NASA, in 2012 when it was trading at $3. “I was interested in it due to the underlying blockchain concept,” he added.

    The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), in association with WazirX, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the country, in its just-released report titled ‘Crypto Industry in India’, has shed light on how the Indian cryptocurrency market is on an exponential rise.

    “As more and more young Indian investors are excited to explore newer investment options, they are adopting cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polygon to make investments that promise them viable returns,” the report states.

    One of the key prognosis of the Nasscom report is that the CryptoTech industry will reach $241 million by 2030 in India, and $2.3 billion by 2026 globally.

    According to the report, more than 60 per cent of states in India are emerging as cryptotech adopters and, with over 15 million retail investors, the industry is increasingly attracting start-ups to adopt cryptotech.

    ATTRACTIVE TO GEN-Z

    What makes cryptocurrencies attractive to risk prone Gen-Z is its transparency, decentralised character and volatility.

    The value of cryptocurrency is completely notional and dependent on faith. The price follows the laws of demand and supply. In the absence of regulatory control and oversight, market manipulation can occur, which introduces volatility.

    “Crypto is primed to take our Prime Minister’s Digital India mission forward. In fact, our number of users from Tier-II and Tier-III cities have grown by 2,648 per cent and contributed to 55 per cent of total signups on WazirX in 2021,” said Nischal Shetty, CEO, WazirX.

    “Crypto has immense potential to contribute to our $5 trillion economy vision, and in the coming years, we’ll see crypto overcome the financial barriers for rural India, create access to jobs,” he added.

    SOME CRYPTO STATS

    *Over 12,000 crypto currencies exist today.*Total crypto market cap: $1.96 trillion.

    LEGAL HURDLES

    In 2017, a top-level inter-ministerial committee was set up to analyse issues associated with virtual currencies and propose appropriate actions.

    The committee’s 2019 report highlights several risks associated with such decentralized virtual currencies by private parties, including risks of volatility, lack of regulation, technology-based risks such as phishing and Ponzi schemes, illegal and criminal use (such as terrorist financing and money laundering)

    In June this year, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) had issued a show cause notice to WazirX under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, involving cryptocurrency transactions worth Rs 2,790.74 crore.

    The ED said that it had initiated the probe on the basis of a money laundering investigation into Chinese-owned illegal online betting applications.

    In his reply, WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty had said that they were “in compliance with all applicable laws.”

    BITCOIN WAS FIRST USED TO BUY PIZZA

    On May 22, 2010, Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz spent 10,000 Bitcoins at Papa John’s to buy himself two pizzas.

    Back then, his Bitcoins were worth only $40.

    But, since the crypto currency was a non-entity in the commercial world, Hanyecz reached out to the Bitcointalk community and openly traded his Bitcoins to anyone who would buy him these pizzas

    FYI: You don’t have to buy a whole Bitcoin, which is worth around Rs 34 lakh. You can buy a fraction of BTC (or any crypto) for as low as Rs 100

    STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE INVESTING IN CRYPTO

    Do thorough due diligence.

    Read a project’s whitepaper and its use cases, roadmap and progress.

    Check the team’s background, their social media activity.

    Check if it’s listed on legitimate exchanges.

    Invest based on risk appetite.

    BITCOIN AS AN INVESTMENT OPTION?

    Fixed supply of 21 million, i.e., only 21 million Bitcoins will ever be created.

    Digital asset which is not limited to any country, or entity, but available to anyone around the globe.

    Slowly emerging as an alternative asset class which offers a high-risk, high-reward investment option.

    Important to understand the high-risk high-reward aspect and invest based on risk appetite.

  • Bitcoin frenzy settles down as big players muscle into market

    bouncing up, falling down and keeping investors on the edges of their seats, bitcoin may be maturing into a period of relatively boring stability, experts say.

    A worldwide wave of regulation has led to a collapse in trading volumes. Cryptocurrency advertisements are disappearing from top internet pages, and bitcoin no longer dominates Google searches.

    As investors try to figure out what bitcoin wants to be when it grows up, the best-known cryptocurrency is going through somewhat of an existential crisis.

    “It needs a new narrative,” said Nicholas Colas, New York-based founder of investment research firm DataTrek. “There is every chance that if there is some sort of institutional involvement, there could be a move higher.”

    Bitcoin rallied 25 percent in April after crashing 70 percent from a high near $20,000 late last year.

    The cryptocurrency landscape has indeed changed. Mom-and-pop investors who drove bitcoin’s skyrocket rise in 2017 have been pushed aside by government bans on trading, and replaced by cryptocurrency funds, wealthy individuals and established financial firms.

    The bigger players can make bigger moves, but their trades are often obscured by screens on over-the-counter (OTC) brokerages and matching platforms.

    They are also less likely to chase sudden swings in bitcoin’s value, being more interested in the potential of unproven but promising blockchain technology.

    Average daily traded volumes across cryptocurrency exchanges fell to $9.1 billion in March and to $7.4 billion in the first half of April, compared with almost $17 billion in December, according to data compiled by crypto analysis website CryptoCompare.

    Several exchanges saw their daily trading volumes drop by more than half between December and March, including Bitfinex, Poloniex, Coinbase and Bitstamp, the data shows.