Nations must prepare to deal with stablecoins: Sitharaman

4 OCTOBER 2025

Hinting at a possible shift in India’s cryptocurrency policy, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said countries would have to “prepare to engage” with stablecoins whether they welcome the change or not.
“Innovations like stablecoins are transforming the landscape of money and capital flows,” Ms. Sitharaman said.
“These shifts may force nations to make binary choices: adapt to new monetary architectures or risk exclusion,” she said.
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that attempt to maintain stable prices as they are pegged to an underlying asset, such as a basket of currencies or precious metals.
The Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have both voiced their reservations about private cryptocurrencies, also referred to as virtual digital assets.
India has not legalised these products in terms of regulation, but it does tax transactions that involve them.
The RBI, on the other hand, has lobbied hard to ban virtual digital assets outright, while simultaneously launching pilot projects of its own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
CBDCs are cryptocurrencies issued by central banks and have the same legal backing as official currency.
Blockchain technology used in cryptocurrency also has other applications.
A Non-Fungible Token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity.