The Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), T. Rabi Shankar described Satoshi Nakamoto as a “fictional figure” who may seem insignificant to the enigmatic bitcoin founder in the comments. Shankar went into a diatribe against crypto assets, calling them “worse” than a Ponzi scheme.
Speaking at a technology conference organized by the Indian Banks Association on February 14, the central bank official also proposed a complete ban on all private cryptocurrencies in the country, citing significant risks to financial stability.
esoteric satoshi nakamoto
Shankar acknowledged that Nakamoto was “the first” to effectively solve the double-spending problem, an issue related to electronic money, but this appears to have disparaged the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin.
He added that Satoshi was “an imaginary person or person or corporate or any other entity that no one knows yet.”
The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is unknown. The inventor went off the radar on December 12, 2010, two years after publishing the bitcoin white paper. Crypto and privacy lovers regard Nakamoto as the epitome of liberal values.
Just a Ponzi Scheme, says Shankar
Identifying Satoshi as a fictional character undermines the founder’s seminal work somewhat. But Shankar stressed that cryptocurrencies cannot be defined as “currency, asset or commodity”. Efforts to regulate them, he says, would be “futile”, adding:
“They [cryptocurrencies] There is no underlying cash flow, they have no intrinsic value… they are similar to Ponzi schemes, and can be worse. All these factors lead to the conclusion that banning cryptocurrency is probably the most appropriate option for India.”
The deputy governor said that while Ponzi schemes invested in income-generating assets, digital currencies were merely a “gambling tool”. He accused crypto assets of disrupting the government-controlled monetary system, exposing the country of 1.38 billion people to manipulation by private issuers of digital currencies.
“The class of crypto products is fundamentally designed to bypass the established financial system and the government at large,” Shankar said.
“The fact that they are anonymous, decentralized systems that operate purely virtually makes cryptocurrencies particularly attractive for illegal, illegitimate transactions that have been largely filtered out of the formal financial system.”
Shankar scoffed at the idea that a crypto asset ban would stifle blockchain-related innovation. He said this was tantamount to believing that a ban on nuclear weapons would hinder development in nuclear physics. Shankar rejected the argument that bitcoin (BTC) was a store of value or a medium of exchange, saying:
“We have examined the arguments that advocate that cryptocurrency should be regulated and found that none of them stand up to basic scrutiny.”
India’s central bank governor Shaktikanta Das last week criticized the digital asset, saying it “doesn’t have an inherent value, even a tulip.” He said they “are a threat to our macroeconomic stability and financial stability.” While there seem to be discrepancies on cryptocurrency policy between the various government arms in India, the country’s finance minister insists that there is “absolute harmony”.