The Supreme Court overturned the Reserve Bank of India’s ban on cryptocurrency.

A two-year legal battle between a consortium of cryptocurrency exchanges and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ended yesterday with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of a petition filed by the consortium. As a result, Asia’s third-largest economy with a population of over 1.3 billion people is now freer to innovate and participate more in the fast-growing cryptocurrency market and the benefits it offers to finance.

The 180-page judgment released outlines the infringement rules imposed by the RBI in April 2018, which effectively banned financial institutions from providing banking services or trading on cryptocurrency exchanges.

“RBI has issued a “Statement on Development and Regulatory Policy” in paragraph 13 directing institutions regulated by RBI not to deal with or provide services to any person or entity that (i) handles or makes payments in virtual currencies; (ii) Terminate any virtual currency transaction or settlement relationship, if any, with such person/business.”

Even though the ban was overturned, the court held that the RBI had not acted unconstitutionally as the circular was quashed on the basis of proportionality, which is the principle of ‘rule’.Criminal law was used to convey the idea that the severity of a criminal’s punishment should be commensurate with the seriousness of the crime.’ The battle may be won, but the war is not over yet. Tanvi Ratna, CEO and founder of Policy 4.0, which works on cryptocurrency policymaking in India, said in a statement:

“The logical conclusion is that if the ruling goes against the actions of central banks, there may be a rethinking of the issue within financial policy makers. However, there is no guarantee that this will happen, especially if the ruling only addresses the issue of regulatory overreach by the RBI and leaves ample room for policymakers to decide on the treatment of cryptocurrencies.”

Meanwhile, officials are celebrating the RBI victory. Nischal Shetty, CEO and Founder of Wazirx, India’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, expressed his excitement: write on twitter:

“Cryptocurrencies have won in India. We won! #IndiaWantsCrypto”

Additionally, Sumit Gupta, CEO and founder of exchange aggregator CoinDCX, optimistically shared his thoughts on the incident:

“The Supreme Court’s lifting of the ban will open up new opportunities for India in terms of investment, economy and overall markets.” Thank you for listening to our story. We have always seen cryptocurrencies as having the potential to realize India’s dream of becoming a $5 trillion economy.”