Nirmala Sitharaman calls terror financing and money laundering, biggest threats of crypto

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in an International Monetary Fund seminar, said that the biggest risk of cryptocurrencies is money laundering and terror financing, reported NDTV.

The minister, who is in Washington to attend the Spring meeting of the IMF, said, “I think regulation using technology is the only answer. Regulation using technology will have to be so adept, that it has to be not behind the curve, but be sure that it is on the top of it. And that's not possible. If any one country thinks that it can handle it. It has to be across the board.”

During a high-level panel discussion, hosted by IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva, Sitharaman talked about how India has adapted to the digital revolution, especially after Covid-19 hit. The FM said, “If I use 2019 data, the digital adoption rate in India is about 85 per cent. But globally that same year it was only somewhere near 64 per cent. So the pandemic time actually helped us to test and prove for ourselves that it is simple to use, common people can use it, and adoption actually was proven.”