India is leaning towards not creating legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies in the country and instead will maintain partial oversight, fearing that bringing the digital assets into its mainstream financial system could raise systemic risks, a government document shows.

The document, seen by Reuters, cites the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) view that, in practice, containing the risks of cryptocurrencies through regulation would be difficult.

Global acceptance of cryptocurrencies has improved since U.S. President Donald Trump took office and prices of bitcoin, the world’s largest crypto-asset by market capitalisation, have hit record highs.

The U.S. has also passed legislation permitting wider use of stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies backed by fiat currencies making them less vulnerable to wild swings.

China continues to ban cryptocurrencies but is considering a Yuan-backed stablecoin, Reuters reported last month. Although, Japan and Australia are developing regulatory frameworks for such virtual assets, they maintain a cautious stance without actively promoting the sector.

Regulating cryptocurrencies in India would grant them “legitimacy”, and “may cause the sector to become systemic”, the government document, prepared this month, said.

In contrast, while an outright ban can tackle the “alarming” risks from largely speculative crypto assets, it would not be able to tackle peer-to-peer transfers or trades on decentralised exchanges, it added.

The Indian government’s formal views have not been previously reported.

The Finance Ministry and the RBI did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

In 2021, the Government prepared a bill to ban private cryptocurrencies, but didn’t go ahead with the legislation.

During its G20 presidency in 2023, India had called for a global framework to regulate such assets. In 2024, the government planned to issue a discussion paper on its crypto stance but deferred it, saying it would review the issue after the U.S. formalised the use of cryptocurrencies.

At present, global crypto exchanges can operate in India after registering locally with a government agency tasked with due diligence to check money laundering risks. Punitive taxes are imposed on gains from cryptocurrencies.

But the central bank has repeatedly cautioned against the risks in dealing with them, leading to a near freeze in trading between the country’s formal financial system and cryptocurrencies.

Indians have investments worth $4.5 billion into various cryptocurrencies, and use of such assets is currently neither significant nor a systemic risk to financial stability, the document said.

The current limited regulatory clarity has helped contain the risks of cryptocurrencies on the regulated financial system, it said. The present tax and other laws act as a deterrent towards speculative trading in cryptocurrencies, and penalise fraud and illegal activities, it added.

As regulatory approach towards cryptocurrencies varies globally, “charting a clear way forward or identifying a uniform policy approach is not straightforward,” the document said.

Stablecoins

Trump on July 18 signed the GENIUS Act into law, setting federal rules and guidelines for cryptocurrency tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar known as stablecoins.

The document said the adoption by the U.S. of dollar-backed stablecoins and promoting their use as payment instruments will impact both advanced and emerging economies.

This would require “close examination” by the government as most stablecoins in circulation globally are pegged to the U.S. dollar, it said.

Stablecoins target price stability but can fluctuate due to market shocks or liquidity constraints impacting financial markets, the document said.

Widespread use of stablecoins could fragment national payment systems such as fast inter-bank transfers, and weaken the country’s digital payments system, Unified Payment Interface (UPI), it said.

Published – September 10, 2025 10:18 pm IST

The cryptocurrency market experienced a massive response on January 17th when Donald Trump, the recently elected president of the United States, unveiled his official meme coin, ‘TRUMP.’. Within the first hour of the news, one trader received a windfall of $20 million in less than an hour.

Donald Trump launched the new meme coin on his social media platform, Truth Social, with these words: “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!”

According to Cryptotimes, Donald Trump’s $TRUMP memecoin launch on Solana has taken the crypto world by storm, becoming the hottest topic on several social media platforms. In just two hours of its launch, the coin surged over 4,200%, reaching a jaw-dropping $7.7 billion market cap.The sudden launch, combined with its massive growth, has sparked debates, confusion, and FOMO across social media.

My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Go to https://t.co/GX3ZxT5xyq — Have Fun! pic.twitter.com/flIKYyfBrC

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2025

As per the news portal, a trader moved quickly and bought almost 6 million TRUMP coins for approximately $1.1 million using USDC. Within 90 seconds, this trader’s investment became worth $23 million. Up to now, they have sold only a small portion but still have 5.43 million TRUMP on their hands, which gives them a profit of over $20 million, according to Lookonchain.

The explosive launch has attracted many users, but questions about account theft are also being asked. However, the price increase of the TRUMP coin and the trader’s profit are the main topics of discussion in the crypto sphere at the moment.

According to Introbillion at Binance, with 200 million tokens in circulation, it has already hit $1 billion in trading volume and a market cap of $14.5 billion.

The crypto market is abuzz following a seismic shift as XRP, the token powering Ripple’s ecosystem, surged beyond $2, solidifying its position as the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Beincrypto reported.   

With a market cap exceeding $135.37 billion, XRP has overtaken the USDT stablecoin ($134.17 billion) and Solana ($108.01 billion), reigniting discussions about its potential to challenge Ethereum’s dominance. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $2.37, marking a remarkable 25.57% increase since Monday’s session began.  

Speculation is rife about XRP’s trajectory, with enthusiasts suggesting it could rival Ethereum (ETH), whose market cap currently stands at $441.46 billion. Adding to the buzz, a recent meeting between Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has captured attention, along with rumours of Garlinghouse being considered for a role as Donald Trump’s potential crypto czar. Such a development could further bolster XRP’s standing, especially given Trump’s reported pro-crypto stance, Beincryto reported.

XRP’s resurgence aligns with renewed scrutiny of Ripple’s ongoing legal battle with the U.S. SEC. The lawsuit, which began in December 2020, has subjected XRP to intense market and regulatory pressures. Despite these challenges, XRP has regained its pre-lawsuit valuation, evoking memories of its dominance before the SEC’s 2018 classification of Bitcoin and Ethereum as non-securities following the pivotal Hinman speech.  

The Ripple case has unveiled internal SEC debates through the so-called “Hinman emails,” revealing disagreements over the speech’s implications for other cryptocurrencies. While these revelations have fueled market optimism, XRP’s regulatory status remains unresolved, with legal analysts predicting the case could stretch into July 2025.  

Sneaky Moves From Whales on XRP

Historically, significant spikes in whale-to-exchange transactions (marked by red circles) align closely with XRP price peaks, this suggests that whales tend to move large amounts of XRP to exchanges to sell near local or cycle tops.

The latest… pic.twitter.com/i0qKDs19XM

— 우민규 (Woominkyu) (@Woo_Minkyu) December 2, 2024

“Historically, significant spikes in whale-to-exchange transactions (marked by red circles) align closely with XRP price peaks. This suggests that whales tend to move large amounts of XRP to exchanges to sell near local or cycle tops. The latest spike in whale-to-exchange activity coincides with XRP reaching a local price of around $2.3. This could indicate whales preparing for potential profit-taking or increased market activity,” a CryptoQuant analyst wrote on X.

Washington:

Cryptocurrencies are huge risks to financial stability and monetary stability, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shantikanta Das said Friday, asserting it may create a situation where the central bank may lose control of money supply in the economy.

“I am actually of the opinion that this is something which should not be allowed to dominate the financial system. Because it has huge financial stability risks and huge monetary stability risks, it also poses risks to the banking system. It also may create a situation where the central bank may lose control of the money supply in the economy,” RBI Governor Shantikanta Das said during his appearance at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank.

“If the central bank loses control of the money supply in the economy, how does the central bank check liquidity available in the system? How does a central bank control inflation by squeezing money supply or by losing money supply in times of crisis? So, we see crypto as a big risk, and there has to be an international understanding because the transactions are cross-country,” he said in response to a question.

“There has to be (an) international understanding on this issue, being fully mindful of the huge risks associated with cryptocurrencies. It is not something which I feel it’s not something which should be encouraged. This view is not a very popular view, but I think as custodians of financial stability, it is a major concern for central banks world over. Governments are also becoming increasingly aware of the possible downside risks in cryptocurrencies,” Das said.

India, he said, was the first country to raise questions about cryptocurrencies. In the G20 under the Indian presidency, there was an agreement to develop an international understanding with regard to how to deal with this whole crypto ecosystem. Some progress has been made in this regard, he added.

“I think more work still needs to be done. From India, from the Reserve Bank’s perspective, I think we are one of the first central banks which very clearly voiced its serious concerns about the so-called cryptocurrencies. We see them as big risks, huge risks to financial stability. There are good reasons why we are saying that,” he said.

“First, we have to understand the origin of cryptocurrencies. The origin was to bypass the system. Cryptocurrencies have all the qualities of money. The fundamental question is, are we as authorities, are governments comfortable with privately issued cryptocurrencies which have all the features of Currency issuance. Currency issuance is a function, a sovereign function. So the bigger question, larger question is whether we are comfortable with crypto, which has characteristics of being a currency, or whether we are comfortable with having a private currency system in parallel to the fiat currency,” he added.

“Obviously, if a certain part of your economy is getting carved out and it is dominated by the crypto assets or the private crypto assets, then the central bank loses control over the entire monetary system. So therefore, it will lead to a huge amount of instability in the monetary system. It can also promote a huge amount of instability in the financial sector. So there are very big risks,” he said.

“So therefore, in India, we have been articulating that we have to deal with this very carefully. In fact, we have articulated that Countries of course, it will depend on individual countries taking their own decisions. But we feel that it has to be very strong, it is something which I think should be very cautiously and very carefully dealt with,” Das said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

After avoiding an Estonian kidnapping plot, Australian cryptocurrency billionaire Tim Heath, who had previously maintained a low profile and was not well-known, has made headlines in all major media channels.

In late July, Mr Heath, who is rated 62nd on The Australian’s 250 Rich List, was allegedly attacked at his flat in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, but he was able to stop the attempted kidnapping.

Men wearing hi-vis vests and pretending as painter-decorators attacked the 46-year-old with the intention of kidnapping him and taking him to a distant hiding place.

Also Read | Delhi Metro Takes Down “Check Your Oranges” Ad After Criticism For Insensitivity

“It was only after a second-tier Tallinn Circuit Court hearing concerning one of the suspects, Georgian citizen Ilgar Mamedov, who had been held in custody since the attack and was requesting release, that the paper learnt of the kidnapping attempt, which was fortunately foiled as the target was able to fight off his assailants once they had pounced,” News Corp Australia reported, translating a report by investigative weekly Eesti Ekspress.

“The criminals had reportedly bought equipment they thought they needed from a hardware store days before and planned to take their victim to a remote hideout in the Kakerdaja bog, around 65 kilometres from Tallinn.”

Fortunately, Mr Heath was able to “fight off his assailants once they had pounced” and occurred just over a week before the grand opening of his $100 million Bombay Club, a land-based casino for high rollers that features opulent gaming rooms, guest rooms, cigar lounges, and restaurants, according to News.com.au.

Former US President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure documents show he owns more than $1 million (Rs 8,39,68500) in cryptocurrency and made $300,000 (Rs 2,51,90550) from endorsing branded Bibles.

As per the documents released on Thursday, Trump earned $300,000 in royalty payments for “The Greenwood Bible.” “The Greenwood Bible” is officially titled “God Bless the USA Bible.” Its name comes from the GOP-favourite Lee Greenwood song.

According to the branded Bible’s website, it sells for $59.99 and includes a handwritten chorus to the song “God Bless the USA.” by country singer Lee Greenwood. A limited-edition copy that is said to bear Trump’s signature is also available on the website for $1,000.

According to CNN, the disclosure, which totalled more than 250 pages, offers a window into the president’s extensive finances, including everything from his real estate business to his investments, income, and debts. The release from the Federal Election Commission marks the first public update of his finances in a year.

The documents are a reminder of Trump’s business interests all across the globe, including dozens of registered trademarks in China as well as ones in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ukraine, and Israel, among many others. It also reveals tidbits about how the president keeps his fortune, from millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency to a six-figure investment in gold bars.

Recently, Elon Musk hosted a 2-hour unscripted interview with Donald Trump, attracting over 1.3 million live views on X.

They discussed immigration, the US economy, and Biden’s administration. Reactions were mixed, and the interview’s impact on Trump’s campaign remains uncertain, with Kamala Harris currently leading in the polls.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said that Kamla Harris will be a terrible president, launching a fresh attack on the vice president. 

“I think I’m entitled to personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her. I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president,” he said further, attacking Harris in a fresh set of remarks.

“And I think it’s very important that we win,” he continued saying. “And whether the personal attacks are good, bad. She certainly attacks me personally. She actually called me weird.”

Washington:

Former President Donald Trump has promised to make the US a “Bitcoin superpower” if returned to the White House and said that he will appoint an advisory council to design transparent regulatory guidance for the benefit of the entire industry.

But Trump, the Republican nominee, stopped short of proposing a formal federal reserve of digital currency.

Trump made a series of cryptocurrency-friendly policy commitments during remarks at a Bitcoin convention Saturday, including promising to fire Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and creating a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile.” “I’m laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world,” Trump, 78, said.

Bitcoin is the world’s first widely adopted cryptocurrency — it allows for secure and seamless peer-to-peer transactions on the internet.

He also warned that Bitcoin investors in the audience will be “crushed” if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected as president.

“They (Democrats) want to choke you. They want to choke you out of business. We’re not going to let that happen. And no longer will your government sit by and watch as Bitcoin jobs and businesses flee to other countries because America’s laws are too unclear and too tough and too angry and too stiff. We will keep each and every Bitcoin job in the United States of America,” Trump said in his address to the Bitcoin2024 Conference, the cryptocurrency industry’s largest annual gathering, in Nashville’s Music City Center.

Trump is the first major party candidate to address the annual cryptocurrency conference.

Trump also promised to “immediately” establish a “Bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council,” which he said would provide “transparent regulatory guidance” for the cryptocurrency sector. “I am proud to be the first American president to address a Bitcoin event anywhere in the world. If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,” he said.

“We will have regulations, but from now on, the rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry. People who want to make it clear and simple, straightforward and fair. People that want to see your industry thrive, not dive,” he said.

Trump also said he would end efforts by the US government to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC), an initiative that cryptocurrency enthusiasts have long been critical of.

“I will immediately order the treasury department and other federal agencies to cease and desist all steps necessary because there’s a thing going on in your industry. They want to move the creation of a central bank digital currency. It’s over. Forget it. There will never be a CBDC while I’m President of the United States. I will always defend the right to self-custody. You’re going to have a great industry, and we’re going to be fuel for your industry,” he said.

As president, Trump has declared Bitcoin “not money” and criticised it as “highly volatile and based on thin air.” But Saturday marked the culmination of a total reversal on the issue during the former president’s latest White House bid. Indian-American entrepreneur-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy is a key advisor to Trump on cryptocurrency.

Trump announced that as part of his effort to provide regulatory clarity, his administration will create a framework to enable the safe and responsible expansion of stable coins allowing them to extend the dominance of the US dollar to new frontiers all around the world.

“America will be richer, the world will be better, and there will be billions and billions of people brought into the crypto economy and storing their savings in Bitcoin. Those who say that Bitcoin is a threat to the dollar have the story backwards. Bitcoin is not threatening the dollar. The behaviour of the current US government is really threatening the dollar,” he said.

“The danger to our financial future does not come from crypto. It comes from trillions of dollars in waste, rampant inflation and open borders while giving welfare and free healthcare to all of the illegal aliens that are pouring into our country by the millions and millions and millions. It comes from printing hundreds of billions of dollars to fund endless wars overseas while our cities are like combat zones here at home,” he alleged.

Trump America under him will become the world’s undisputed Bitcoin mining powerhouse.

“You’ll be a Bitcoin mining powerhouse. You will not have to move your family to China. You will not be moving to China. As we implement these reforms, Bitcoin and crypto will grow our economy, cement American financial dominance and strengthen our entire country long into the future,” he said. PTI LKJ NSA NSA

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Philadelphia, United States:

The “wine trader” wooed her online for months with his flirtatious smile and emoji-sprinkled texts. Then he went for the kill, defrauding the Philadelphia-based tech professional out of $450,000 in a cryptocurrency romance scam.

The con — which drained Shreya Datta, 37, of her savings and retirement funds while saddling her with debt — involved the use of digitally altered deepfake videos and a script so sophisticated that she felt her “brain was hacked.”

The scam is commonly known as “pig butchering,” with victims likened to hogs fattened up by fraudsters with feigned love and affection before the proverbial slaughter — tricking them into a fake crypto investment.

The rapid growth of this fraud, thought to be run by crime syndicates in Southeast Asia, has resulted in losses worth billions of dollars in the United States, with victims saying there is little recourse to recover the money.

As it has for many victims, Datta’s experience began on a dating app — Hinge, in her case, where last January she met “Ancel,” who introduced himself as a French wine trader based in Philadelphia.

Datta said she was “charisma bombed” as the conversation quickly moved to WhatsApp. The gym buff with a dreamy smile deleted his Hinge profile to give her “focused attention,” a refreshing experience in the age of fleeting online relationships.

They exchanged selfies, flirty emoticons and did brief video calls in which the suave but “shy” man posed with a dog, later determined to be AI deepfakes.

They texted daily, with “Ancel” enquiring about little things like whether she had eaten, preying on Datta’s desire for a caring companion after her divorce.

Plans to physically meet kept getting pushed back, but Datta was not immediately suspicious. On Valentine’s Day last year, she received a bouquet from “Ancel” sent from a Philadelphia flower shop, with the card addressing her as “Honey Cream.”

When she sent him a selfie, posing with the flowers, he sprayed her with red kiss mark emojis, according to WhatsApp exchanges seen by AFP.

‘Traumatizing’

Between the mushy exchanges, “Ancel” sold her a dream.

“The dream was, ‘I’m retiring early, I’m well off. What is your plan?'” Datta, who is from India, told AFP.

“He’s like, ‘I’ve made all this money investing. Do you really want to work till you’re 65?'”

He sent her a link to download a crypto trading app — which came with two-factor authentication to make it appear legitimate — and showed her what he called money-making trades through annotated screenshots seen by AFP.

Datta converted some of her savings into cryptocurrency on the US-based exchange Coinbase and the fake app initially allowed her to withdraw her early gains, boosting her confidence to invest more.

“As you make astronomical amounts of money trading, it messes with your normal risk perception,” Datta said in hindsight.

“You feel like, ‘Wow, I can do even more.'”

“Ancel” egged her on to invest more savings, take out loans and, despite her reluctance, liquidate her retirement fund.

By March, Datta’s nearly $450,000 investment had more than doubled on paper, but alarm bells went off when she tried to withdraw the amount and the app demanded a personal “tax.”

She turned to her London-based brother, who did a reverse image search of the pictures “Ancel” had sent her and found they were of a German fitness influencer.

“When I realized it was all a scam and all the money was gone, I had proper PTSD symptoms — I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t function,” Datta said.

“It was very traumatizing.”

– ‘Brainwashed’ –
Dating sites are rife with disinformation, with Facebook groups such as “Tinder swindler dating scams” and “Are we dating the same guy?” cropping up, and researchers calling out the growing use of AI-generated profile pictures.

But the use of romance as a hook to commit financial fraud is provoking new alarm.

The FBI told AFP that last year more than 40,000 people reported losses totaling well over $3.5 billion from cryptocurrency fraud, including pig butchering, to the agency’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

But that estimate is likely low, as many victims tend not to report the crime out of shame.

“What’s horrific about this crime is it is meant to take every last penny from its victim,” Erin West, a California-based prosecutor, told AFP, adding that she is “deluged with victims every day.”

Self-harm among victims is a common concern, campaigners say, with most unable to recover their losses and some falling prey to another breed of scammers — fake recovery agents.

Datta, who is in therapy and has moved to a smaller apartment to manage her debt, said she had little hope of recovery after reporting the crime to the FBI and Secret Service.

Neither body responded to AFP’s queries about her particular case. Nor did Coinbase, which informed Datta in an email — after she was conned — that she “may have sent cryptocurrency to a fraudulent investment platform.”

More agonizing, Datta said, was dealing with public judgments such as, “How could you be so stupid?”

“There should be no shame in becoming a victim of this absolutely masterful psychological scam,” West said.

“Victims are truly brainwashed.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

FILE PHOTO: Celsius Network logo and representations of cryptocurrencies are seen in this illustration
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network said Bitcoin mining is key to the company’s restructuring efforts at a U.S. bankruptcy court hearing on Monday in Manhattan.

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New Jersey-based Celsius received approval from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn to spend $3.7 million in construction costs at a new Bitcoin mining facility and $1.5 million on customs and duties on imported Bitcoin mining rigs. Patrick Nash, a lawyer for Celsius, told Glenn that Bitcoin mining could provide a way for the company, which halted other business operations like its cryptocurrency lending, to repay customers, whose assets its froze in the weeks leading up to its bankruptcy filing.

“In a world where the crypto market rebounds, the mining business has the potential to be quite valuable,” Nash said.

Celsius filed for Chapter 11 protection on July 13, listing a $1.19 billion deficit on its balance sheet. Crypto lenders’ business model came under scrutiny following a sharp crypto market sell-off spurred by the collapse of major tokens TerraUSD [UST] and LUNA in May.

Celsius’ assets shrank amid the extreme volatility, and its freezing of customer accounts was an attempt to stem losses and stabilise its business, Nash said.

Celsius hopes the mining effort will help it repair its relationship with customers, some of whom sent threats and hate mail to some company employees in the weeks before the Chapter 11 filing.

But a group of equity investors previewed a possible fight for control over the Bitcoin mining operations. Dennis Dunne, the investors’ lawyer, said they may argue that the newly mined coins should be considered property of the UK subsidiary that raised the funds for the mining operation, rather than being distributed for the benefit of all Celsius creditors.

Customers might also object to Celsius’ spending on Bitcoin mining vendors at a time when their own recovery is in doubt, the U.S. Department of Justice’s bankruptcy watchdog said.