Topic: **IMPORTANT**URGENT** Support needed to defend the stance of bitcoin in India (Read 8342 times)

I started this thread thinking I may be able to get some help from community but I was somewhat wrong. The way this thread has progressed combined with news from btcxindia has confused indian bitcoin community and stakeholders. And wrong things are getting picked up by press/media.

Few things I have tried to make it clear but the question keeps coming up non stop in here and in other threads in reply to comments:

1. Till now, No data from Unocoin or its customers has been given to any officials. They have not even been asked for.

2. there is no relation to the topic of this thread and what happend with btcxindia as far as i know. All our banking relations are secure.

3. bitcoin is not illegal in india and bitcoin is unregulated in india as of now. If you are doing something illegal, irrespective of whether you use bitcoin or not, it is seen as illegal by law. Also if you want to do something illegal, bitcoin will be the last thing you would want to use. You could get away with it today or for next few years, but as technology continues to improve and as new challenges get faced to enforce law / bring compliance, you could get traced back caught sometime down the line.

4. I continue to put my best possible efforts to safe guard the interests of bitcoin community in India. period.

Our next step is to have one more meeting and try to see if we can close our discussions and if it still looks like it gonna continue, we will just engage our lawyers and we will get back to continue building our business. We have considered changing our approach based on the feedback of our well wishers and stake holders suggesting there is no point in dealing this ourselves.

This thread did help me get some important connections (who IMed me instead of writing here directly) - thanks for that.

Given these, i do not see any open questions that i still can answer/disclose. If you have any concerns as long as it is related to bitcoin or unocoin, please send me an IM and I am happy to address them. This thread will be locked for now.

I cannot understand why you are interacting with a government agency on behalf of your business (that is a custodian of identity and financial data) without using a lawyer. It just seems funny that a government agent is asking you to do what is supposed to be their job, and you seem to be happily complying. What you should be doing instead is searching for a lawyer who is knowledgeable enough about bitcoin and having him on retainer to defend your company as and when required.

What you are doing now is essentially similar to breaching the trust your customers had placed in you when providing you with their personal data. Remember, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If the government official thinks a crime has been committed, they need to follow the proper procedures outlined for them to investigate it, not hassle you. If they need information from your company, they need to produce a court order (or it's equivalent in India). Of course, these are things your lawyer will be able to tell you more about. It's not guilty people who use a lawyer, it's the sensible ones.

For a company that is as well funded as yours, your behaviour is very shocking.

Maybe you can post the address or the transaction on here, and we could help track or find it. Then you could just claim it was Chainanalysis that helped you find out the information.

+1

BTCXIndia.com CEO Kamlesh is definately not very open.......

I would at least say, there would be more reasons than this one alone.

they should just move to HDFC, ICICI or Axis.....plenty of options....there is more to BTCXINDIA.COM closing story.........

kotak

Update on todays meeting:
Met with the officer whom i have been meeting since 2 days. The meeting was short.

Meeting with the higher office above this person did not happen.

Explained what chainalysis is doing and how it could be helpful in law enforcement. He asked me to track a particular address to start with using this tool and report it. this is one of the addresses involved in transaction which we are trying to crack down.

http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2015/pr1505071.htm did not make much sense as it is not indian. i brought this up just as a sort of FYI though.

Through an intro i did catch up on skype with chainalysis guys to see if their tool is helpful. I found it to be incredible and it did provide some of the insights of the transaction in question.

I (or harish) will be reporting the findings during our next meeting with the officer in a week or so. probably there wont be any new news on this till then.

Sure, i would go all in to serve bitcoin community in india.

any idea what banks they use?

thanks 

Yes, they are shutting because of loss of banking partner. We are good on this front.

Sure - no data will be given unless i get proper summons or warrants. Present discussions are pertaining to bitcoin technology itself than the business activities on bitcoin.

Good video - could not watch in full. will do some time.

Sathvik can you please assure the community, that you will not crackdown under pressure....please.....

+1 . Please don't sell out under pressure. Remain ethical.

Sathvik, it seems btcxindia.com is shutting down due to crackdown, can you let us know who were the authorities??

PLEASE DON'T HANDOVER ANY CUSTOMER DATA UNTIL YOU GET PROPER SUMMONS OR WARRANTS

Check also this video
https://www.itbit.com/blog/watch-bitcoin-blockchain-and-the-future-of-financial-transactions

Back to the reason for me to start this thread.

Two questions that I could not fully answer yesterday but will attempt to answer today:

1. "governments cannot regulate bitcoin because of its psudo-anonymous nature and govt do not regulate unless it can be fully controlled."
My answers for now: http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/press2015/pr1505071.htm and to explain how this has been seen in US.

2. "You keep saying the bitcoins are trackable but that needs questioning of every individual who is invovled to know the next link and this is not fully practical when crime gets committed. not able to trace one link like the rest of the chain untraceable"
My answer is about the new technologies and businesses which help parse through a ton of the blockchain data, and make it easier for law enforcement to monitor and make sense of transactions. one such business is https://chainalysis.com/

I am running a parallel email thread and these are the replies by our investor. so they are obviously reliable.
If there are any insights or inputs on these, please comment. else just try to keep this thread clear from troll - it is not adding value

That just shows you have no knowledge about authorities in India and how the systems works here.

If there is a crime, the authorities first arrest the person who committed it. then the next set of people who helped indirectly will get interogated and convicted if found guilty. then the next circles around them who are in any way related to these people will get questioned.

in india the first thing people getting interogated or questioned hear from the authoities is "you did a mistake and know about this when you are doing it". then depending upon your answers, the conversation grows. unless they are convinced that there was no wrong done, these people getting questioned need to get to their office and answer new questions. the officers keep calling once or twice a month and get the answers. then finally when they believe they have all the info, they will get the FIR done. till the case is obviously referred to the court.

this is not the first time i am explaining about bitcoin to an authority http://www.coindesk.com/indian-tax-authorities-seek-clarification-bitcoin/

it is never as simple as - ok you did the crime, get into jail. or - oh you did not do anything wrong, please walk out now.

as i explained, we are summoned to explain a set of transaction by an user. so they would obviously continue questioning us to know fully about how bitcoin got used in the incident and how such thing can be avoided in future. the officers i am talking to, did not know much about bitcoin before our attempt to explain how it works. today i am explaining to his senior and he do not know much about bitcoin as well and he is not a technology guy.

the office i am visiting right now is related to the place where unocoin customer resided when the incident involving those transaction happened. unfortunately it is not the head quarters of the authority or have a set of people who researches about technology. this is the first incident involving bitcoins the office is seeing - they want to know more about it as to know what exactly about bitcoin is making their job tougher.

i wish people or officers in india know about bitcoin as much as that 68 year old lady did.

Again I think you are Mis-understanding the point as you have with everything anyone else on here has put. Maybe you need to take the time to actually READ something before posting and give some good thought!! ANYTHING everyone else has stated you have twisted or "Mis-Understood".


POINT BEING: According to MANY articles not just what was declared on the wiki, the INDIAN Government is already well informed about Bitcoin and its purpose MEANING they would never need to approach a small bitcoin company about anything. They already have there facts together when it comes to bitcoin meaning if they needed to proceed with charges they sure as hell do NOT need any researched material. So any "Authority" figure you are referring to obviously is not of any importance so why you had to make a big deal about it and argue with people on here about it is beyond me.


Next time if some supposed "Authority" comes to you with anything how about you turn the tables on them and ask them why they "Apparently" know nothing about bitcoin!


Oh and PS: There's no need for any more opinions, my point has always been that this post is just for attention and the more you post it just goes to show I was right and anyone that is truly part of the community would acknowledge that. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out what Bitcoin is, hell the 68 Year old Woman at the licensing department down here knows what it is and she don't even know much about computers she said when I went to have my Bitcoin business licensed.