oppn parties Cryptocurrencies: Making A Comeback

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
Stock markets on fire due to US results, Sensex gains 2008 points to reach its highest level in 8 months
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Cryptocurrencies: Making A Comeback

By Sunil Garodia

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

This June, cryptocurrency Bitcoin once again breached the $10000 barrier. It was after one year that Bitcoin reached this level and it was triple of what it was fetching in 2018. So why are investors once again flocking to buy the digital 'coin'? Why is there a renewed interest in something that is neither widely accepted nor legal in most parts of the world? Ever since Bitcoin touched dizzying heights (it touched $19783 in December 2017), financial regulators the world over, especially in emerging economies, have advised governments to ban it.

In fact, in India, a committee headed by ex-finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has recently put its report in the public domain. The report recommends that India should ban mining, holding, investing in or even providing services to facilitate any or all of these. In the same breath, the report also recommends that the government can think of floating its own digital currency if it so wishes. Hence, the committee is neither against the technology nor its viability. It is essentially against the private ownership of companies that facilitate these cryptocurrencies.

So is the cryptocurrency market maturing and more informed investors coming in after the initial hype that brought in the uninformed and the me-too walas, who more often than not burned their fingers and pockets? The present upswing, sans the hype, indicates as much. As Bitcoin outperforms other asset classes, even conservative fund managers and skeptics will not like to miss out. Further, cryptocurrency is being made mainstream with offerings from Facebook and JP Morgan.

Facebook has unveiled that it is going to launch its cryptocurrency Libra anytime soon. JP Morgan is also coming out with JPCoin. It needs reminding that James Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase had initially said that cryptocurrencies were a fraud but he later regretted making that statement. Other mainstream firms in the financial world are offering custodian services or online trading platforms, changing the nature of investment in crypto currencies.

Although trading volumes are nowhere near the high of 2017, the market structure has changed completely (there are less of speculators now and more of investors) and this bodes well for the stability of the asset. Benefits of the blockchain technology that drives the cryptocurrencies are being widely and increasingly recognized all over the world. If a worldwide standard is developed and financial regulators shed their opposition, the asset class may still emerge as the currency of the future.