New Delhi, June 17 -- India's virtual digital assets (VDA) ecosystem is expanding at a remarkable pace. According to Chainalysis, India ranked first globally in grassroots cryptocurrency adoption for the third consecutive year in 2025, with over 100 million users. Yet, the country's legislative and regulatory response has been cautious.

India has constructed two pillars for VDA oversight: (i) a tax regime (1% TDS and a flat 30% tax on gains); and (ii) an anti-money laundering (AML) framework, carried out through know your customer (KYC) norms, other client due diligence protocols, transaction monitoring and reporting, etc.

But the country has not enacted a substantive regulatory framework to address, inter alia, investor protection, gri...