How crypto exchanges are morphing into NFT marketplaces to evade new rules

For several months, my stand on cryptocurrencies, assets and exchanges has been that a comprehensive regulatory framework be built around the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The government has been listening and accepting most of the suggestions. The challenge of framing regulations for an amorphous sector is that it will evolve and emerge in a new form. This means that some of the definitions have to be open-ended and progressive to incorporate future changes in technology or products, while keeping the interests of citizens, investors and even technological growth in mind.

This difference is now being accepted in both opinion pieces and general narrative. I have said earlier that only an RBI-mandated digital currency can be called a currency in India. No exchange, marketplace, adviser should sell or buy or facilitate the sale or purchase of any digital token—which I call a Kardashian investment—under the guise that it is a currency.

My stand has also been validated by both the government and the central bank. The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is the only digital currency that will be termed or defined as such; anyone else terming a digital token as a currency should invite punitive damages under section 420 of the IPC for fraud.