India vs. the people: The battle over cryptocurrency ownership continues

India has a curious relationship with blockchain. On the one hand, the Indian government is a huge proponent of blockchain technology, and nearly half the states in India have already initiated government-sponsored blockchain projects. At the same time, the government has been very ambivalent toward cryptocurrency, drafting a slew of measures in the last couple of years to control its growth.

In April last year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which functions as the country’s central bank, issued a ban prohibiting banks from receiving or transferring any money related to cryptocurrencies. This came as a huge blow to the crypto ecosystem in India because people were no longer able to cash out their cryptocurrency holdings. Some of the country’s top crypto exchanges like Koinex and Zebpay ended up shutting down while others like WazirX decided to navigate the situation by creating alternate peer-to-peer exchanges. 

The RBI’s ban isn’t the only stumbling block for India’s…