As you may be aware, a while back, the Reserved Bank of India (RBI) issued a note to all banks operating in India ordering them to not accept cryptocurrencies for transfers. However, things didn't work out quite as well as the government expected them to. Cryptocurrency transactions still happened around the country normally.
So, the government now thinks that the note alone has been insufficient for banning cryptocurrencies, and as a result, a bill has been drafted. The bill is quite harsh in what it suggests, and if it is passed, cryptocurrency will effectively be killed in India.
According to the bill, any direct or indirect use of private cryptocurrencies will be punishable by a fine up to ₹25 crore (about $3 million), and imprisonment up to a period of 10 years with a minimum of 1 year.
Repeated offenses may fine the person up to 3 times the gain they made, 3 times the loss or harm they caused, or up to ₹25 crore and a minimum of 5 years of jail (maximum being 10 years).
What the bill essentially means is that it will become illegal to issue, mine, transfer, hold, sell, or use cryptocurrencies. If it indeed gets passed, the consequence will be that the currently exponentially growing cryptocurrency industry will receive a huge blow.
People are holding out hope that the bill will be modified before being passed, or that it will simply not pass at all. The worst outcome would be if it gets passed in its current state unmodified.
Whatever it is, we will need to work towards making cryptocurrencies more acceptable by governments around the world, and to do that, we need to make more and more people adopt cryptocurrencies.
If that bill is passed, India will be left behind in the cryptocurrencies innovations. It would be like a country banning the Internet, what a stupid move. It would only lead to an exodus of talents leaving the country and billion dollar startups in other countries.