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- Balaji Srinivasan with Ispirt deduced adding crypto to IndiaStack will expose India to tons of crypto-inspired opportunities.
- The IndiaStack concept is a long-term vision to gradually replace international American and Chinese corporation-managed services with locally-operated tech platforms and national digital currencies.
- Several esteemed crypto and tech experts took to social media to express their support for this concept.
India might position itself ahead of the U.S. and China as the global leader in decentralized finance (DeFi). That is, if the Asian nation enables cryptocurrency functionalities on existing public digital platforms including the UPI and Aadhaar, deduced Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of global crypto leader Coinbase, and Bengaluru-based think tank Ispirt, the creator of IndiaStack.
Crypto on IndiaStack: An Absolute Win
Published Saturday, a pair of “companion articles” by Balaji and an Ispirt team of experts urged that adding crypto to IndiaStack, while opening India to tons of crypto-inspired opportunities, can also solve the oversight risks in regulating such transactions.
The former general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Balaji Srinivasan, believes India can “champion a decentralized movement.” He said most countries follow and benefit from the “decentralized crypto protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum” but none “control.”
Balaji referred to the Ispirt published “NationStack concept” as “a long-term vision” for India to gradually replace American and Chinese corporation-managed services with “locally-operated tech platforms and national digital currencies” in every other country.
Ispirt’s Expectations and Goals
The Indian Software Products Industry Round Table (Ispirt) built IndiaStack, a uniform software platform that allows the Indian government and businesses to access rails such as Aadhaar, Digi-locker and UPI.
In a Blogspot, Ispirt noted that a public crypto rail on IndiaStack could bridge “India’s SME financing gap.” Along with offering the benefits of “crypto crowdfunding” and access to “global DeFi lending pools” to Indian startups, the “emerging concept of personal tokens” might even fund the Indian students.
The proposals have “technical and social support” from every targeted class of investors. Conclusively, the blog renders “Balaji’s proposal” deserves “serious consideration by policymakers in India.”
Experts In Support of the Notion
Several esteemed crypto and tech experts, including former Infosys chairman and architect of India’s Aadhaar project Nandan Nilekani, endorsed this concept, expressed through their social media handles. Oddly enough, India’s national crypto stack proposal comes when the nation is about to ban cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, for retail traders.
Will India Ban Crypto?
Under the guidance of former finance secretary Subash Garg, a parliamentary committee recommended the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021. The bill outlaws not just crypto-trade but holding as well; terrible news for the nascent crypto industry in India.
Following China’s example, India will develop sovereign reserves-backed digital coins as an alternative to paper currency. The RBI has established an internal committee to study the possibility.
The Best of Both Worlds
Balaji sights this as an opportunity for India to get “the best of both worlds.” A “domestic digital currency” under the control of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and “international payments capability” independent of any foreign party control at every level; neither currency nor platform levels.
