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Cryptocurrency industry body Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BACC) will soon come out with guidelines for advertising as part of a move towards a setting a code of conduct for the players.
Ashish Singhal, founder-CEO of CoinSwitch Kuber and co-Chair of BACC, said: “We are in discussions with the Advertising Standards Council of India on the proposed steps for every industry player to take before they open up their advertising in general.
“These discussions are ongoing and, hopefully, our guidelines will be ready within the next few weeks.” Singhal said the guidelines clarify the dos and don’ts for advertising.
KYC guidelines
The BACC is also working on a standardised set of self-regulatory guidelines for KYC (know your customer) and customer education, and will move on to issues including FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) reporting and risk monitoring. “First is KYC. For any user coming on to the crypto platform — what are the KYC norms? How can we standardise them to ensure that every player in the crypto industry follows the same standards for onboarding their customers?” asked Singhal, adding that the second set of guidelines would be on education.
“What are the education guidelines that we, as an industry, need to put out? How do we guide users to get access to knowledge sharing exercises across the crypto domain, irrespective of the company which is hosting these knowledge sessions? The idea is to collaborate to form a common platform for users on which they can clarify any doubt on crypto,” he said.
Close watch on users
In the six months to October 2021, Coinswitch Kuber had suspended close to 1,80,000 accounts for malicious practices and was monitoring about two lakh accounts on its platform for suspect activities. “We have done a lot of clean-up of our users as well for various reasons and we continue to do that. Our risk-monitoring continues to evolve every day to ensure we are the most compliant crypto company,” Singhal said.
On the deferment of the introduction of the Cryptocurrency Bill in Parliament, Singhal said that crypto is a complex subject and any rushed regulation may actually hurt the industry rather than help it. “It’s good that the government is taking its time, understanding the space and having in-person discussions with stakeholders to ensure they know all the nuances of the space, rather than rushing to the regulation,” he said.
Also read: Bills on crypto, banking privatisation deferred, both houses adjourned sine die
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