Suril Desai

I would cut the 1% TDS to 0.01%. It repeatedly locks up capital, even on losing trades. A later tax credit does not repair today’s cash-flow damage. The state already has reporting tools. It should collect information without choking liquidity and making compliance commercially punishing.

Investor protection cannot be measured by how much business disappears from India. The 70% estimate needs verification, but offshore migration is documented. When users move beyond effective local recourse, risk survives and domestic accountability weakens. I call that a policy failure dressed up as caution.

RBI’s powers are subject to law and judicial review. The 2020 judgment demonstrated that by setting aside its banking restriction. Cutting off banking can strangle a business without banning it on paper. Any fresh restriction needs a lawful basis and must survive constitutional scrutiny; regulatory discomfort is not enough.

The state knows how to collect the tax and demand the data. Customers still need clarity about who safeguards their assets and what happens after an exchange fails. PMLA compliance matters, but it cannot substitute for a complete framework. Permanent uncertainty is a cost imposed on every serious builder.

Monetary sovereignty, especially the risk of dollar stablecoins displacing rupees, is the strongest argument. Add leverage and links to banks, and financial-stability concerns become serious. But protecting the rupee and protecting banks from competition are different objectives. Regulators should show which risk each restriction addresses, and who pays the price.

Selling decentralisation while asking everyone to trust an opaque company. Reckless promotion and weak custody hand regulators their strongest argument. If you hold customer assets, prove what you hold and disclose what you owe. Calling yourself anti-bank means nothing if you reproduce the same dependency without accountability.

Best case: lower TDS, enforceable custody rules and banking access based on published criteria. Worst case: more financial exclusion presented as protection, with activity moving elsewhere. My base case is more reporting before meaningful reform. India risks supplying the talent while other countries become home to the businesses.

The e-rupee digitises sovereign money; it does not abolish trust in the sovereign. Programmable versions can attach conditions to spending. I want strong privacy, due process and the continued choice of cash. A faster payment is not greater freedom if somebody else gets more power over when and how you spend.

UPI is excellent at moving rupees between accounts. It does not give you Bitcoin’s ability to hold an asset without a bank or central issuer. Faster banking does not settle who controls your money. India can celebrate UPI and still demand alternatives to compulsory dependence on financial intermediaries.

I expect coexistence: rupees for daily life, CBDCs for some settlement, stablecoins where permitted, tokenised assets, and Bitcoin for self-custody. The real contest will be over control. Will Indians get meaningful choices, or merely different apps leading back to the same gatekeepers? That choice is a political question as much as a technical one.

Treating the law as something to fix after the token sale. A white paper does not establish what you are legally selling, who controls the money or what buyers can claim. Work that out before launch. Otherwise you may be selling legal liabilities disguised as innovation.

India should be able to export products without having to export its founders. There is a strong case for building here, especially software and infrastructure. Overseas incorporation may make commercial sense, but Indian tax and regulatory obligations can still follow. Policy should give founders reasons to stay beyond sentiment.

For many businesses, yes. A token should earn its place in the product. If its main job is to raise money before there is a business, I am sceptical. Its function and legal rights must be defensible. The word “utility” in a white paper is not a legal opinion.

Associations exist, including Bharat Web3 Association. My test is whether the agenda defends the user as vigorously as the exchange. We need positions on self-custody, privacy and lawful banking access, not just trading volumes. Public advocates, including me, have to help organise that work. Complaining is the easy part.

Build tools that make people less dependent on gatekeepers. My priorities are Bitcoin security, usable self-custody and recovery that ordinary families can manage. Stablecoin and tokenisation projects must explain the rights and redemption behind the token. Adding “AI” to “crypto” does not create a business model.

That the government collecting tax means the government guarantees the investment. FIU registration is not deposit insurance, a solvency certificate or blanket permission for every product. Learn exactly what is regulated. A registration badge should never do the thinking that a customer’s due diligence is supposed to do.

Not your keys, not your coins. But if your family cannot recover those keys, your sovereignty can become their loss. Keep a will, an asset inventory and secure, tested recovery instructions; never put seed phrases in the will itself. With an exchange, understand your legal claim and its succession process.

Learn a skill that survives a price crash. Code, audit, investigate, or understand the law well enough to solve real problems. Contribute work people can inspect. If your entire career disappears when a token falls 80%, you built your livelihood on somebody else’s marketing.

Build self-custody that ordinary families can use and recover safely. If freedom requires technical expertise most people do not have, it will remain a privilege. Make control practical. The point of this technology should be that people can leave an intermediary without losing access to their money.