Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman flags anonymity as “inherent risk” in blockchain technology
Mumbai:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday flagged anonymity as an “inherent risk” in blockchain technology and called for caution in the future with increased use of this technology.
The finance minister clarified that using distributed ledger technology (DLT), also known as blockchain, is “absolutely imperative” and the government also supports its use.
The minister’s remarks come ahead of the launch of the budget announcement of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which itself is based on blockchain technology and is billed similar to the paper currency held in our wallets.
“What is anonymity… an unknown element in this whole matter. The anonymity of the person or whatever or robot is what we have to fully prepare ourselves for as a future challenge,” said Ms Sitharaman at an NSDL office here. Addressing the program, he said.
Ms Sitharaman said DLT is a beautiful technology that will help democratize, but flagged anonymity as an “inherent risk” that we need to protect ourselves from.
Describing anonymity as a “powerfully unavoidable” in the whole equation, Sitharaman said, “Unless we are able to protect ourselves from that anonymous element, which itself may pose an inherent risk, we may find ourselves already Will be uncovering far more than we could have imagined.” Ms Sitharaman commended the head of capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Madhabi Puri Buch, who spoke before her at the same event, for giving us the “right warning” about the risk of anonymity, and DLT. also to advocate.
Ms. Butch said that we do not want to have anonymity in CBDCs, which are to be introduced by the banking regulator RBI during the financial year.
According to the central bank, considerable progress has been made regarding the introduction of CBDCs.
Meanwhile, Ms Sitharaman said that private crypto assets such as bitcoin are “fairly well spread” in India.
Ms. Butch said the strengths of DLT include transparency, real-time, infinite divisibility and it being a cost-effective medium.
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