RBI Governor Interview | Citing crypto crash, Shaktikanta Das says RBI has been rightly cautioning investors

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been cautioning investors and the government against cryptocurrencies and continues to maintain its position, more so amid the current crypto market crash, said governor Shaktikanta Das.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18, Das said, "We have been cautioning against crypto and look at what has happened to the crypto market now. Had we been regulating it already, then people would have raised questions about what happened to regulations."

"This is something whose underlying (value) is nothing. There are big questions on how do you regulate it. Our position remains very clear, it will seriously undermine the monetary, financial and macroeconomic stability of India," the Governor added.

He also believes that the government too seems to be in sync with the regulator's stance that cryptocurrencies have no underlying value.

"We have conveyed our position to the government and they will take a considered call.  I think the utterances and statements coming out from the government are more or less in sync. They are also equally concerned," he said.

The central bank has long maintained that cryptocurrencies have no underlying value, 'not even a tulip', the Governor had said. Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar had said that cryptos are worse than ponzi schemes and there is no alternative but to ban them.

Most recently, US crypto exchange Coinbase's CEO Brian Armstrong had said in the company's earnings call that the exchange had to disable Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on its platform days after its mega India launch due to 'some informal pressure from the RBI'.

On Armstrong's comments, the Governor said, "I would not like to react on speculative observations made by individuals outside."

Moneycontrol had reported on May 12 citing sources that the RBI hasn't imposed any shadowban on crypto exchanges and has not issued any instruction which goes against the 2020 Supreme Court order that had overturned RBI's 2018 ban on cryptocurrencies.