High Fives for India’s Official Cryptocurrency Study Tours

ICOBox co-founder Daria Generalova gives three cheers to Indian officials who recently traveled to the US, Japan, and Switzerland to study how those countries crypto.

While some countries have decided to stick their heads in the sand over cryptocurrency and blockchain technology (I’m looking at you, especially, China), India certainly cannot be diagnosed with ostrich syndrome any time soon. The country has progressively started to move more and more toward embracing cryptocurrencies, ICOs, and blockchain. According to their 2017–18 Annual Report, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) organized tours to the US, Japan, and Switzerland last year specifically so officials could study cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs) and how those countries are dealing with them.

There’s still some trepidation around the technology in general in India — the RBI recently got its knuckles rapped by their Supreme Court for ending dealings with crypto businesses — but overall there’s been really positive movement in the sector. No matter how the situation surrounding cryptocurrency market regulation in India turns out, no one will be able to accuse the county’s officials of not at least giving it all they’ve got.

You see, there are two ways you can react to the introduction of technologies that are new, perhaps seemingly opaque, and not yet fully understood in the mainstream. The first and easiest is to gainsay them and retreat into your shell and make a hundred arguments about why your conventional, old-fashioned system is best. The second is to greet innovative ideas with an open mind and really check them out, try them on for size, take them out for a serious test drive. I have both feet firmly planted in the camp that chooses the second option, which is why I wholeheartedly applaud SEBI’s choice to send its officials to learn about cryptocurrencies and ICOs from their colleagues in other countries with an eye to adopting the technology.

India’s move here is setting a world class example for everyone else.