India’s Home Minister Amit Shah has compared the threats around cryptocurrencies and the metaverse as being just as serious as those related to dynamite explosions or hawala cases. Shah was addressing a G20 meeting when he said a common global strategy is needed to deal with changing threats that now widely includes vulnerabilities in widely used and trusted cyber networks. As part of its ongoing G20 presidency, India is working on making rules to govern the cryptocurrency sector globally.
The Home Secretary was referring to the need to address new types of crime that are making headlines in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as Web3 elements such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse.
Shah, during his speech, noted that there has been a clear change in the types of security threats that are of serious concern in the times we live in.
“The shift in our conventional security threats from ‘Dynamite to Metaverse’ and from ‘Hawala to Cryptocurrency’ is certainly a matter of concern for all nations. To address this, a common strategy must be prepared,” Shah said.
The minister also shared a clipping of his speech on his Twitter account, followed by 33.2 million accounts.
The shift in our conventional security threats from ‘Dynamite to Metaverse’ and from ‘Hawala to Cryptocurrency’ is surely a matter of concern to all nations. To deal with this, a common strategy must be prepared.#G20India pic.twitter.com/JcyQMaoCpA
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) July 13, 2023
In the coming week, India will host the third G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting in Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
The meeting will also be attended and co-chaired by the union’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman as well as RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.
By December this year, India is expected to make some progress on global crypto laws.
Meanwhile, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, recently acknowledged that cryptocurrencies and Web3 are elements of the next generation of the Internet.
Having said that, the minister added that rules and regulations are more necessary to govern the crypto space just to make it safe for everyone to use and participate in.
