Earlier today, India’s Supreme Court reversed a ban against Bitcoin, Ripple’s XRP, and other cryptocurrencies. While this is a huge development for all digital assets — from the market leaders to the small altcoins that few know of — some are saying this ruling could have an outsized effect on XRP, which has been struggling in terms of price action over the past year and more.
India Reverses Key Anti-Crypto Regulation
For those who missed the memo, first, a quick recap: on Wednesday, India’s top court struck down a directive from the Reserve Bank of India that banned banks from offering services to those that dabble in cryptocurrency, whether it be Bitcoin or XRP or otherwise.
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Vaibhav Kakkar, a partner at law firm L&L Partners explained to Bloomberg on the matter:
“With this order, there is a likelihood of more mature and balanced regulation of cryptocurrencies and the fintech sector as a whole.”
Could Be Bullish for XRP (And Ripple)
According to Credible Crypto, a prominent industry commentator and trader, this decision by the Supreme Court to reverse the ban will be especially bullish for XRP. He explained:
“Regulatory clarity was the final piece of the puzzle that was holding Ripple back from going after the Indian remittance market aggressively. Great for XRP.”
The importance of India to Ripple can be further corroborated by the fact that Senior Vice President of Product at the company, Asheesh Birla, said in a panel at Wharton that digital payments and remittances will be huge for Indians in the future:
“Where’s the future? And so we realized in the next five years, one billion people will become banked in India, but they’ll be banked through their phone. So then we started targeting mobile phone providers and telcos.”
The regulatory clarity surrounding cryptocurrencies, which should follow upcoming hearings of the Supreme Court, is like to assuage fears that using a cryptocurrency-based international payment system like Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity system is a viable option.
This comes at an important time; Ripple is in the midst of a push for the adoption of its products, including ODL, which uses XRP as a bridge currency between institutions and fiat currencies.
The company has successfully started to implement this product into the East-Asian markets, which are full of a need for remittances, making India the next logical step.
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