A battle between the central banks and private cryptocurrencies has been brewing for some time and now it seems we are getting closer to a climax,” said Kamath, the co-founder of India’s largest stock trading platform by volume.
“Developments in China and some of the other parts of the world show that to some extent, cryptos do take away powers from central banks and governments. So they are bound to fight back,.and when they come out and try to regulate it and change it in one way or another, it will be interesting to see what happens and which side wins,” he said.
The 35-year-old fintech disruptor says he would put his money on the side of central banks and the governments not allowing cryptos to thrive beyond a certain extent.
Kamath says one should not have too much allocation to any one asset class, and crypto is a fairly volatile asset class. “If one is looking to diversify one’s portfolio, then it’s okay to invest 1-2-5 per cent of one’s net worth in cryptos. But do so only after understanding what it entails,” he said.
On Wednesday, the global crypto market cap stood at $1.89 trillion, down 3.65 per cent from the previous day, amid choppy trading. The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours stood at $97.32 billion, down 14.64 per cent.
Beijing last Friday issued a blanket ban on all crypto trading and mining and cryptocurrency exchanges and providers of crypto services are since scrambling to sever business ties with mainland Chinese clients. Ten powerful Chinese government bodies, including the central bank, said overseas exchanges are barred from providing services to mainland investors via the internet — a previously grey area -z and vowed to jointly root out “illegal” cryptocurrency activities.