By Mason Mohon | INDIA

The walls are red over on my go-to crypto tracker, Coin Market Cap. Most cryptocurrency is crashing down between 10-20% of its 24 hours value.

There is a reason for this.

As Russia Today reported on Thursday morning, the India Finance Ministry has declared that cryptocurrency is now illegal, and a complete ban is on its way.

“The government does not consider cryptocurrencies as legal tender or coin and (will) take all measures to eliminate the use of crypto assets” – Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

India has a ten percent share in Bitcoin’s market, so this is likely to have a huge impact.

Update

Coin Telegraph reports that there is no ban happening, yet crypto-media has interpreted Jaitley’s statements as such. The aforementioned RT report even said it was on track for a full ban, which is just another instance of blowing things out of proportion.

While Jaitley’s speech noticeably avoided any mention of legality of crypto in and of itself, commentaries by third parties and mainstream media journalists controversially claimed that a ban was imminent.

The Minister’s statements have still crashed the market, though, yet as soon as the waters clear and people realize no ban is happening, a recovery may very well be in order.