No figure on notes yet: RBI
In a bid to put to rest speculation on the quantum of scrapped notes deposited in banks and post offices, the Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said it is reconciling invalid currency with physical cash balance and will release the numbers at the earliest.
The RBI’s clarification on old `500/`1,000 comes in the backdrop of various reports estimating that over 95 per cent of the defunct notes have been returned till December 30, the last date for depositing old currency.
“There had been various estimates on SBNs tendered in certain sections. We would like to clarify that the periodical SBN figures released by us were based on aggregation of accounting entries done at the large number of Currency Chests all over the country,” the RBI said.
The finance ministry had said that there were lots of areas where double counting could have happened. To arrive at the actual figure it would take time.
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Hong Kong, Jan. 5: Bitcoin neared its all-time high on Thursday, with the surging digital currency tipped to become a new safe haven asset as the world grapples with growing economic uncertainty.
The unit broke the $1,100 barrier on the Bitcoin Price Index, an average of major exchanges, to continue a dizzying rise that made it the best performing currency of 2016. It has fluctuated wildly since it was created in 2009 and lost three quarters of its value when it plummeted from its previous BPI high of $1,165.89 in 2013.
And news of a major bitcoin theft by hackers in August sent its price plunging by more than 20 per cent.
But analysts say its volatility will ease as volumes grow and point to a strengthening US dollar and tightening currency and capital controls, as well as the rise of the digital economy, as factors behind its appreciation.
In particular, the chaotic withdrawal of high value bills in India and restrictions on buying foreign currency in China as the yuan slides against the dollar have stoked demand, analysts say.
Exacerbating the rocketing demand is a tightening supply of fresh bitcoins.
The currency was always meant to be finite, and more than three quarters of the planned 21 million bitcoins have already been 'mined'.
Encrypted digital coins are created by supercomputers and then traded online or exchanged for goods and services. Vinny Lingham, a bitcoin expert and CEO of identity protection startup Civic, told AFP the dwindling supply of new bitcoins, and regular currencies sliding against the US dollar as the Federal Reserve ratchets up interest rates, were pushing up the unit's value.