India

However, the Indian market still lacks a clear regulatory approach at this point, and there are issues that cannot be ignored.

According to Your Story on Sept. 15, India's largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), has banned cryptocurrency exchanges from using its UPI platform to collect payments.

Another bank, HDFC Bank, has warned investors not to trade virtual currencies such as bitcoin and said it would impose transfer restrictions and even revoke bank cards. icici Bank has also notified some payment gateways to shut down online banking services for merchants who buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

Wang Haifeng noted that while the Indian government seems to have recently moderated its stance on cryptocurrencies, we have also seen news claiming that the Indian government is considering introducing a bill to ban private cryptocurrencies. Overall, the lack of clarity in the government's stance and the lack of regulation are likely to remain the main issues facing the development of the local industry in India.

On September 4, The Economic Times had reported that "the government plans to define cryptocurrencies in a new draft bill, which also proposes to classify virtual currencies based on their use cases." In addition a report said that India plans to regulate cryptocurrencies as commodities and that "cryptocurrencies will be considered as assets/commodities for all purposes, including taxation and according to use cases - payments, investments or utilities."