One of the most famous entrepreneurs in India, who also serves as a government advisor, Nandan Nilekani, has declared himself in favor of crypto, despite the fact that the government looks like it’s preparing a crypto ban.
Nilekani took part in a Clubhouse session with angel investor Balaji Srinivasan, where they’ve talked about the state of crypto in India. Nilekani is a co-founder of major Indian tech company Infosys and also serves as the founding architect for the national biometric ID system, Aadhaar. Nilekani is also a chairman in a special Indian committee that assesses digital payments in the country and an advisor for many government agencies, including the Reserve Bank of India.
He incredibly-busy-man supports the freedom to use crypto such as Bitcoin in India, saying that its citizens should be permitted to own crypto as an asset class. He also highlighted crypto’s use as a store of value:
“We should think of crypto as an asset class and allow people to have some crypto. Crypto as a transaction medium will not work as fast as UPI, which is targeting a billion transactions a day. But crypto has enormous capital.”
Nilekani also divulged that he believes the Indian regulators ought to help the country’s micro, small, and medium enterprises access capital via crypto.
“I am not sure we need a private stable coin or if a digital rupee will be good enough. We need to look at how it will help Indians, how MSMEs can access capital using bitcoins. No amount of tech is going to sway anyone’s view,” he said in regards to stablecoins and the digital rupee.