After the eagerly-awaited announcement of India\'s Annual Budget on February 1st, the government seem to be still sitting on the cryptocurrency fence. The speech made by the Finance Minister was ambiguous in some aspects, reiterating that digital currencies are not considered \"legal tender or coin,\" and emphasising that all possible measures would be taken to eliminate the use of \"crypto assets\" for \"financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system.\"

So is it to eliminate them in connection with illegitimate activities or the payment system as a whole? The sentence is unclear. On the other hand, no measures were actually announced in connection with the digital currency market, and, in fact, the Indian cryptocurrency exchange, Bitbns announced on February 2nd that they were adding Stellar coin XLM to their trading platform. 

An executive of another of India\'s leading exchanges, Zebpay, said that the Finance Minister was simply reiterating the stance taken by the Royal Bank of India, that cryptocurrency was not recognised as legal tender. To interpret this as meaning that Bitcoin is illegal, or banned, as has been mistakenly reported, was just not true, he said. Indian exchanges have the highest KYC standards as regards transparency of transactions and bank accounts.

Cryptocurrency trading in India accounts for approximately 10% of global activity.