India's Crypto Regulation Halted: Committee Calls for Wider Policy Deliberations

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in India has suggested that any move to regulate cryptocurrencies and other virtual digital assets (VDAs) should be preceded by wider policy deliberations and coordination among regulators and government departments.

The committee examined the Securities Markets Code, 2025, which is designed as a technology-neutral framework. This allows tokenized versions of existing securities such as shares, bonds, and units of investment schemes to remain within the ambit of securities regulation.

However, cryptocurrencies that do not possess the characteristics of securities or derivatives may remain outside the proposed law, according to the Ministry of Finance.

The report stated that crypto-assets are currently unregulated in India except for taxation, anti-money laundering, and reporting requirements. The government believes that framing a comprehensive regime for crypto-assets would require both domestic and international coordination.