Fact Check: Did Modi say bitcoin is legal tender in India? PM's Twitter account hacked

Hyderabad: A tweet from the official account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeting that India has officially adopted bitcoin as legal tender is viral on Twitter. The tweet states that the government has officially bought 500 bitcoins and is distributing them to all residents in the country.

Fact Check:

While it is true that this tweet was indeed sent out by the official account of Narendra Modi, it was not posted officially. The account was hacked.

The second official account of the PM (@PMOIndia) tweeted saying that the Twitter handle of PM @narendramodi was very briefly compromised and that later the account was immediately secured. It shares that in the brief period that the account was compromised, any tweet shared must be ignored.

This recent hack of the PM's Twitter account is followed by last September's hacked post on another official account of his, @narendramodi_in, that asked for a donation of Bitcoin towards the PM National Relief Fund for Covid 19.

Bitcoin legalization in India

The government had planned to ban all private cryptocurrencies and announced that it will establish a regulatory framework. However, crypto will not be recognised as currency or legal tender in India. The Reserve Bank of India is open to using the technology behind cryptocurrencies but is not in favor of making them legal tender. This is because these currencies are a threat to financial stability and are highly volatile.

The legislation's name has replaced the word "cryptocurrency" with "crypto asset".

(Source: NDTV, Hindustan Times)