The government could set up a new panel to recommend the ideal course of action for regulating crypto-currencies, the Economic Times reported. This development comes at a time when banks and payment companies are blocking their services to crypto-exchanges, as a result of which the exchanges are unable to accept fresh deposits and on-board new investors. Back in 2019, a Finance Ministry committee headed by the former finance secretary Subash Chandra Garg had recommended a complete ban on crypto-currencies and suggested that the government enact criminal provisions against crypto-firms, investors, miners and other market participants. Garg left the government in July 2019, a year before he was due to retire. However, since then Garg seems to have changed his views and recently recommended that the government regulate the crypto-currency market. "I don’t think we still have full clarity and understanding about how to regulate cryptocurrencies ... Regulate, control crypto-currencies but allow the crypto assets, encourage the crypto services," Garg said during an event organised by the IT industry body Assocham on May 10. According to the ET report, the committee could be tasked with exploring the use-cases for blockchain and recommend regulations for crypto-currencies, treating them as digital assets instead of as a currency. The committee may also be asked to study ways in which the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) digital rupee can be operationalised, the report said citing three unnamed sources. One source said that there is a view within the government that the Garg committee report is…
