Great. Thanks - perhaps I should have clarified the person sold some amount earlier (what I meant by "barely") and capital gains was paid on it accordingly at 30%. So that leaves me to conclude
1) Crypto-Crypto trades are not taxable, only Crypto-Fiat is.
2) Crypto Holdings are not needed to be declared in IT returns.
Let me know in case I have misunderstood.
Yes. You understood it correctly.
You need to pay tax only if you convert crypto into INR. You need not pay any tax, nor even has to show anything in ITR if you are holding crypto because value of such holding is fictitious and outside the purview of tax.
Also tax on Capital Gain is not 30% in all cases. It is 20% in case of Long term capital gain and 30% only if you made short term capital gains and have annual income more than 10 lakhs. If income is less than 10 lakhs then tax on Short Term Capital Gain is less than 30%.