You could say that India’s taking a slightly different approach to crypto than El Salvador. The Indian parliament is expected to introduce a crypto bill in its winter session that would create a new state-backed digital currency and ban ‘all private cryptocurrencies’ in the country.

What’s happening: The bill facilitates the creation of a new digital Rupee (India’s official currency) and bans all other “private cryptocurrencies”, with only a few exceptions.

• We won’t know what’s actually in the bill until the winter session gets underway, but we do know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other lawmakers have met with industry stakeholders over the past few days.
• Analysts are waiting to see the definition of a “private cryptocurrency” before making judgements on the law’s impact.

The result: Fearing a complete ban, some Indian cryptocurrency holders are panic selling which has resulted in Bitcoin trading at a 3% discount (fairly significant) on Indian exchanges.

Why does this matter: The big fear is that if, as expected, the bill does ban all cryptocurrencies in India, nearly a billion Indian nationals could be locked out of the global crypto market, and other jurisdictions may be encouraged to follow suit.

• India’s move to create a state-run digital Rupee was likely inspired by China’s own digital Yuan.