Topic: INDIA: Draft Law Proposes 10-year Jail Term for Dealing in Cryptocurrency (Read 795 times)

Obviously the uncontrolled explosion of population have been the no.1 curse of India. And the worst part is that it is the illiterate slum dwellers who seems to be producing children, as the educated people are having maximum one or two kids each. The current government policies encourage child production among the uneducated by offering them everything for free, at the same time discouraging the same among the educated by imposing various direct and indirect taxes which takes away a major part of their earning.

Do you think we all need to go on fasting and prayer for this bill not to see the light of the day? LOL, because we really need you guys to record a success story for cryptocurrency. I am sure that this bill will be passed not to favor those who are using cryptocurrency illegally, but for those who will use it for legal means, there will still be a level of regulations for them.

In the parliament, any smart person should brief the house about the goal of blockchain technology, I think this is what they need to emphasized on more and not the cryptocurrency part of it, if they emphasize on crypto, it might really discourage them more as we really have some of these stupid projects that is making crypto look like Ponzi scheme now.

Hopefully this law wont get approved, or else other countries might follow this, making BTC illegal, and maybe only usable in the dark web. With that said, the price might become low, but it will have some power still.
Everyone creating their own cryptos or digital coin, thinking that BTC will disappear are purely mistaken. The real question here is, are they only thinking about money laundering because they dont have good mechanisms to find that out? Security should also grow with every new piece of technology, After that you may reap the fruits of it!

When many countries begin to adapt to the blockchain and crypto currencies, but this country will instead give punishment to anyone who is related to bitcoin, I think that is something that reflects the government's inability to adapt to technology, like stepping back in a civilization. If the fear is about taxes, why don't they try to make tax regulations related to this, instead of banning the use of bitcoin.

So. how is this law going to be enforced?  Will they be scanning through peoples devices for cryptocurrency (people's digital property)? or will they always search the devices physically? After this what next? Ban people from holding gold and silver or even ban bartering.
What a "modern" world we are living in.

These days, there hasn't been many good news from India and this is one of those. I believe this type of law wouldn't be helpful for a country like India. Hope the government would soon realize it.

India is not poo man, far richer than lots off countries,the problem with India is just their population. India GDP is 11 trillion dollars for a population of over a billion, don’t you think they are really trying. If India population was not up to that, then they would have been among world leading nation in terms of economy.

I guess they are trying to protect their economy, which is why they banned Bitcoin thinking it could do damage to their finances, but I know that with time, they will get better understanding, and see the benefit of cryptocurrency to their economy and to their citizens too especially in terms of job creation.

These guys are smarter than you think. I studied programming in India, one of their technology institutes, and you need to feel and see the level they have gone when it comes to computer programming, so this is really not a threat to them. They have lots of educated people and most of them are IT inclined which is what cryptocurrency user requires.

Their population is very high for government to even feel that cryptocurrency will disturb them, because in as much as we have those who have computer knowledge to the deep, we have many of their citizens that are still not exposed, in which they are much more enough to continue to make their FIAT relevant, so Indian government should really not worry, crypto market only need 10 percent of their population to survive lol.

This is a very stupid argument. If the real intention was to reduce the number of crypto-related scams and ponzis, then the government should have regulated the market and legalized the cryptocurrencies. Now by banning crypto, they are forcing the users to go underground and the incidence of scamming are likely to increase by manifold. And what makes the Indian government different, when the fact remains that most of the countries around the world (Germany, Japan, United States.etc) have legalized cryptocurrency?

I am not surprised by this, governments are realizing that bitcoin is not a fad or something that is going to be quickly forgotten and they are getting worried, so the government of India is attacking cryptocurrencies from two directions, first they make it illegal so people are afraid of dealing with it or accepting it and then they create a substitute that will be completely controlled by them for those that are dumb enough to think that a coin backed by a government is a good thing.

But as long as the economic reasons for bitcoin to exist remain such a ban will fail and if things get as bad as some people believe when an economic crisis appears you can be sure that people will chose to disobey the law.

Yes, I agree. This might be one reason why Indian government drafted a harsher punishment because there are Indian's who uses crypto in a bad way just like what @peter0425 posted above. It's really sad to see India suddenly made a U-turn for the worst, but we can't do anything about the government's decision here.

You know the confidence that people have in cryptocurrency? It is fact that it is an anonymous coin, and whatever transaction goes through it cannot be traced, so people are still not scared of using it even when such pronunciation is made by any of those great countries.

Did china too not make a pronouncement recently as regards banning miners from their country which I think they did, yet, there was no little effect of it on the market and people are still going about their crypto business as if china never exist, so right now, I don’t think there will be any FUD news like ban or whatsoever that will ever out an end to crypto.

I am a resident of India, and this is a draft proposal which is about to be tabled in the parliament. The parliament summer session started from yesterday onward and we can expect this bill to be tabled at the lower hosue anytime soon. The government has been giving "negative messages" to cryptocurrency users for quite long. Back in 2014, they issued a warning saying that Bitcoin is a ponzi and everyone should stay away. When no one listened to them, they started threatening the users.

I think this is a wrong decision by the government of India. I am not sure if its just a proposal or this law has been implemented. Whatever is the case, this will give negative message to the people who are dealing in bitcoins and crypto. People may find a back door if the government implements this and ban the bitcoins.

I don't believe such a law will ever come into effect. Regulation? yes, for sure. Total prohibition? No way, no government would shoot itself in its legs in such a manner, especially a country that has so many talented tech developers as India and can profit so much from the Blockchain revolution.

India is not a very rich country, and a large portion of the population lead a hand-to-mouth existence. For millions of such people, cryptocurrencies are the source of passive income or additional income. You may not believe this, but an amount as small as $30 per month can make a lot of difference to many Indians. It is sad that the government is taking away this opportunity from such people.

Lol…. Are you really sure about this news 'cause there are a lot of people in India that are still making use of Bitcoin. Unless they are all hiding their address or something like that to be able to make use of Bitcoin and avoid being caught by the government. And I don't think the government will be able to tell that you're making use cryptocurrency unless they go through your mobile phone or through your computer and they see that you have a cryptocurrency wallet. Then another way is when you withdraw money from a cryptocurrency exchange and they are able to trace that it was coming from an exchange, then they will come for you.

Sad news for Indian friends who make cryptocurrencies sources of their income. Theres a lot of Indian individuals that are in crypto. I wonder what would be the purpose of their would be Crypto Rupee if they will not eliminate paper Rupee totally. The government must want to clean the country of any other cryptocurrency to circulate before they launch  their own. 

Read the article in full and you will get a better idea about it. These guys were blackmailing American citizens after pretending themselves to be from the IRS. They were arrested for that and not for using  Bitcoin. They extorted money out of American nationals and converted the money in to BTC for the ease of transferring to the Indian accounts.

Changing your country is a bit more weird but you know if your income is based on Bitcoins you should do that , Just kidding , just change your VPN guys.

Use some programming , befriend hackers ! , Learn to be better than the government officials itself, trust me there are loop holes every where literally , use that .

First thing it's just a draft , thus don't worry , for passing it may take a while thus we do have time to decide what to do and what not to do.

I read the news article about this draft law in India. This is the problem in countries with very weak laws and implementations tat track down illegal money. They're targeting new resources that might be one way to do money laundering, that is cryptocurrency.

I don't know what push them or what they are thinking about banning crypto currency that it is so serious you can be jailed for 10 years. Though I can't do anything about it so instead of arguing about it, let's just hope that it will not be regulated. There might not be that many crypto users in terms of other country but that can still affect the market.

As you said this is a draft law, so nothing is official and i personally think that there is no way that the government will allow to sentence people to 10 years of jail for such so small act, the sentence is higher than caught a person with position of drugs, however if this gets approved it will not be just bad for the people who are living in there and use crypto but it will show how much the government is dictating people and what they do with their lives and their money.

Maybe the draft law came into life because of these fraudulent activities relating to crypto projects. However, they don't consider the good impact to other crypto enthusiasts who are not into scamming people. We will see how far they can pin down those scammers but they should have exclusion to this law. Those who are doing legal terms towards blockchain projects.

And just like that,

https://beincrypto.com/78-arrested-indian-bitcoin-call-center-scam/


So they have started to clamp down and hunt criminals that deals with bitcoin. So let's see how they are going to run for crypto enthusiast though.

I think those who have been holding Bitcoin for longer and are now encouraged to use coins that they make themselves and that won't guarantee it will be good for them because people are smart and may prefer Bitcoin as their future investment and the coins they build for being the umpteenth time, indeed the effect will be felt when India becomes the holder of many things and now it is only banned but this is not something sad but we must believe in the future, it seems like all will be friendly to Bitcoin

The government of India has been giving its citizens tough time when it comes to trading of cryptocurrency. I think in the future, the government will realize the importance of crypto in its economy and embrace it. The 10 years jail term is a serious one in India for now but with time I think government will compromise its decision on this.

They know this and they are fully aware that people would not buy into their own coin idea that much, which is why they are planning to first ban cryptocurrency and push their own digital coin to their citizens, but I doubt they will succeed, because I don’t see any benefit their coin will be of other than being a utility coin that will be used internally which will only benefit the government alone.

Bitcoin does more than being a utility coin, it also serve as investment which is why many people would always use Bitcoin and any other coin that serves this purpose, people will only accept India digital coin, if they make it a decentralized one.

This is what the Indian businessmen has done all through the years. First they will destroy the competition, buy intimidating and bullying their rivals and once their competitors are gone, they will launch their own over-priced brands. It looks to me that the Indian finance ministry is facing shortage of funds, after freebies were handed out to win the elections. Now they want to squeeze money out of the citizens, by hook or crook.

This is really getting worse and it is sad that they are being biased in their judgment, if they are really against cryptocurrency, why is it now that they are coming up with their own digital currency, how come the idea is just coming to their mind now.

I hope this law will really not be effective, because the population of citizens of India using cryptocurrency is really high, and anything that makes them halt using crypto, it will surely affect the price of some coins, and I am thinking it will affect Bitcoin more, because I think that is what most Indians use for some of their crypto transactions. Let’s see how the anonymous nature of the crypto plays out here.

Like seriously, these people wants to stop their citizens from making use of cryptocurrency for real… Meeeehn, that's really bad. Anyone who is in that country and still insisting to make use of cryptocurrency need to be very careful, cause if you get busted, then you will be sorry for yourself to spend up to ten years in jail, a wasted life lol. So it's better to be careful, if there is anyway you know you can be traced, then you better just take it away or you can just stop making use of cryptocurrency instead of putting yourself in this kind of problem. This is really bad.

The government created a lot of issues for the freelancers earlier. First they banned PayPal. A few months back, the ban was lifted but under strict conditions. Indian users can't store any of their money in PayPal. If they receive any payments in their PP account, then it is automatically withdrawn to the linked savings bank account. Also, Indian users are banned from making peer to peer payments.

India is having high amount of tax rate for converting other currencies into local fiat money that is why they are suffering from illegal money conversion called hawala and happening billions everyday so India can decrease their tax they can atleast make some rather than nothing.

Why would anyone be this idiotic is beyond my understand. India is known for remote workers and freelancer workers who happen to earn money from all around the world and they are getting dollars and euros every single day and work for that in order to then cash it out and get their own fiat currency and that results with the real economy always having some sort of power, not insanely but at least combining all people who work for Europeans or Americans that gets paid and exchange it that makes it better as a collective.

Bitcoin is exactly the same and looks like it was created FOR Indians because it would make things so much easier whereas Indian government is consisting of bunch of stupid morons who can not see this.

Most likely it will be realized, seen from the statement of the Indian government that the use of Cryptocurrency is widely misused as their main reason for punishing people who involved in Cryptocurrency transactions. My opinion on this issue is that the Indian government only takes the opportunity so that its digital currency does not have a rival in its country. Luckily this news make the value of Bitcoin is fine there is no effect at all.

The video is about a crypto scam? I am not hearing the voice so don't know what is happening.But when someone got scammed by these kind of phone calls then they are still illiterate.

There is no official news about this draft so just take it easy.

Thank you India, you've just ensured you would not be part of the cryptorevolution. Too bad that instead of being able to legit make money online by freelancing and stuff, your literate but desperate people have to continue doing phone scams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb_rgQ4IDS8&t=199s


India have close to 0 impact on crypto. China is where pretty much all of the miners are. Huge difference.

Probably because India doesn't have the much influence of crypto as compare to let's say China, wherein the mining are concentrated. The impact is so slim that we didn't feel it at all. Yes the price goes to $7600-$7500, but then again it surges back to $7800-$7900, indicative that it didn't deter this bullrun that we have right now. At least though, people learn not to panic at every news like this. And the only impact I'm seeing is those Indian crypto lovers that we have in this community. But I'm under the speculation that they will just shrug their shoulders hearing this one and will still continue to buy and hold Bitcoin.

Yeah, just as nobody panicked when the first news about the ban spread.

And the reasons are not just because it's a 3rd world country its because there is no volume on the exchanges, there are no shops accepting, no ATMs, no nodes, no mining, ...basically, nothing that can be considered. There are countries in Europe /100 of the size in both population or GDP but which have a far bigger impact on the crypto environment.

Imagine one of the countries in EU seeking a ban...everyone will panic as they would fear the ban would spread to the largest economy in the world which is the union. India...meh..

Another reason for the lack of reactions is that even if its adoption or banning people know India's government will do a shitty job at it and the results will b equal to zero, so no real change whatsoever

.

India is not China. Not even close. Not even a thousand miles close.
 

Is this a reliable source? if it's on halt, I can't think on what's on their minds.

Yes that's what I think.

In able to determine and broadcast your product properly, you have to get rid of your competitors in your platform or inside your jurisdiction. It's on the same situation if you will analyze.

It's just like how tech giants work - buy or smear the competition. Since it bitcoin's case they can't gain ownership of it, governments first went that smear route and if that don't work they'll either tightly regulate it or outright ban it to introduce their own.

This is, why would anyone invest in digital rupees? What would make it valuable?

I hope for all the people in India using crypto this law won't actually go into effect as it appears to only be a draft at this moment, but it's absolutely ridiculous people even just holding and not even using cryptocurrencies could be facing a 10 year jail sentence.

I also don't see this having a large effect on the price of Bitcoin or any other alts in the near future as there just doesn't seem to be much trading volume of crypto in India AFAIK. Hopefully this doesn't actually pass.

Maybe you are right because India is a third-world country, but look at what happened to Bitcoin when China released a news like this.

You are partially correct. The final bill is likely to be a toned down one. If they make the bill too harsh, there will be some public outcry and it will be challenged in the courts. And moreover, it will be almost impossible to implement these harsh measures in a country with millions of people who use cryptocurrencies such as BTC and ETH.

Is it just me? The news about this seems have a less impact or doesn't have at all. Maybe because it's India, a 3rd world country. I don't feel the impact and there's no major talk like, others are panicking or something like that and it seems they aren't worrying. Well, I won't be surprised though.

I spoke about this bill to my friends in India and they said it’s only a draft and the actual bill may not be so harsh, also they informed me that there’re many cases yet going on in Indian courts regarding the approval of bitcoins. Indian government aim of launching it’s own crypto shall be a waste of their resources, as no one will buy their centralised crypto. In my opinion Indian government should look at Japan’s model regarding bitcoin, and implement the same in their country.

agreed, India in one of the countries that has a large number of scammers which the government are concerned about
and when bitcoin entered the country it probably got worse thus the government is taking action to counter it.

Good luck with your 20 people crowd.
I've been hearing this before the last election, now again for the next elections and guess what, nothing changed.


Because they are stupid!!
If the government would be smart they would have done something to advance India from their 3rd world status, but years are passing and nothing is done.

At least with this, we can stop talking about cryptos and India just like we did about China.
Good that India has little to zero influence on the markets so we can move on effortlessly and be done with it. I've told people a hundred times, bitcoin will flourish in the western world, not in poor, corrupted, ran by incompetents countries.

Facebook banned crypto ads,due to the vast majority of scam ICOs being advertised.
The idea of a facebook coin came one year later after the crypto ads ban.
India is a "no man's land" for the crypto world since 2017,we shouldn't care that much about the Indian government's actions.

This is quite the news. I really cannot comprehend why governments are banning technological advancements like cryptocurencies. I mean, had they found some loopholes and security risks in the block chain technology, it will still be possible to upgrade or enhance its features to further suit the needs of consumers, right? There is no point in banning cryptos --these can actually be of good help to other people. SMH

So you think that India is banning Cryptocurrency because they want to launch their own token or cryptocurrency, I don't see the connection although there is a similarity, Facebook is a company while India is a country, they can impose sentence while Facebook can only disable your account.

India was one of the first countries who get involved in cryptocurrency. Some Indian also took advantage and have used cryptocurrency in a negative way so we can't blame their government for making a decision to ban it. However, I don't think their government could still track anonymous transactions. I'm sure that things will still get better in crypto despite all these controversies.

This has been talked a lot in here and maybe because most of us are surprised of this development though we have to make it clear that this is still a proposed law and it can take some time before it can be a law -- that is if this can passed and if the original intent of the proposal will remain intact as you know that legislation can mean compromises. Now, if ever this can be a law, it would surely be a sad day for India because they will equate the ownership of cryptocurrency to a big crime on the level of selling narcotics or thievery. Let's hope enlightened minds in their lawmaking body will eventually realize the folly of this as this is like inflicting a wound to their own citizens. We actually need the India market for cryptocurrency...let's hope that a time will come when they can see the opportunities rather than the threat posed by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/indian-street-protests-for-cryptocurrency

But I think it did more harm than good for them. And yes it looks like they have plans for their own crypto, hence the sudden and unexpected ban coming from them. I'm sure this will have a drastic impact, or it could be one reason why the price in the last couple of days have plummeted to $7k'ish levels.

I hope not ... if this really works, I'm afraid other countries will follow. So that it will make the cryptocurency price decrease. Maybe India has other strategies that we don't know. The bill issued with a 10-year sentence is terrible.

all this was already in several other countries
loud news headlines and nothing more
draft law is not law

Actually, India is one of the countries that approves the existence of cryptocurrency.  I see many projects originating from India such as Otppay.  and they also make Taxi payment services.  but I was surprised if the law in India had begun to ban Crypto.

Hmm, I don't see any of them going to the street to protest, especially knowing how [some aspects of] the cryptosphere works (very low-key, privacy, anonymity, etc), and the general public probably doesn't care about such thing, hell, they'll probably waiting anxiously for the upcoming centralized digital currency from the govt. Something has to be done, but I don't think protesting is one of the options the indian crypto community will go for.

It's the biggest headline this week but surely has a big impact on the whole community it's very surprising it's coming from India they have a lot of cryptocurrency holders and believers, of course, there are hardcore believers and many of them had huge portfolio, I'm pretty sure many of our Indian brothers will go underground.

They can't track all addresses but if they're serious in eliminating some of it, they could start by gathering some of the past addresses used from the local exchanges since it's linked to each person.

They're heading to the same route but it was said that their plans in launching a seperate cryptocurrency was postponed.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/tiny/rbi-is-putting-official-digital-currency-on-hold-reports-claim/

The title looks very the same with other threads that popped last day but the content's different so I thought it's just a duplicated thread. However, with that addition of making their digital rupee.

Things got clearer now, remember when facebook banned crypto ads and after that they went into an idea and rumor of launching their own token? that's the pattern.

I'm so confused, there is an article posted in another thread that RBI denied the knowledge about this amd they said they will be consulting the RBI? So that means this might take a long time before happening. Also, how will they track these addresses in which they don't even know if that address is from their countrymen. I can create an addressamd just deny the fact that that is not mine, they will not be able to tell that it is mine since they have no proof. They might ban sites or exchange? VPN are still legal, there are still a lot of ways they can use crypto currencies.

I wish that law to not be approved and government think twice what is better, take tax on bitcoin or ban it and never get nothing from? And i wish all countries let bitcoin to be used and not ban it.

It has been happening for a while in countries like that where democracy is... well, shaky at best. They will simply ban Bitcoin, easy solution just like china and others, in Europe and more democratic countries, they cannot do that so they try other methods like taxes, fear, etc. Governments will always try to control crypto, I understand why, I would probably want to control it too, do you really trust most people?

Just by looking how they will soon launch a digital version of their fiat shows a clear motive on why they are pursuing a bill like this one. With their plan of removing all kinds of crypto assets in their country they are eliminating the potential competition surround their own cryptocurrency. These kinds of law doesn't only violate the rights of their people but also shows some kind of dictatorial ruling in their state. If I were a citizen in India I would ask for the Indian crypto industry to unite from investors and miners to crypto exchanges and form a protest against this unfair bill, a voice that can be heard is something that will get their attention especially when the election time comes.

Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.

Holding, selling or dealing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin could soon land you in jail for 10 years.

The "Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019" draft has proposed 10-year prison sentence for persons who "mine, generate, hold, sell, transfer, dispose, issue or deal in cryptocurrencies.

Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security and is generally based on blockchain technology, a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in the world.

Given the high chances of cryptocurrencies being misused for money laundering, various government bodies such as the Income Tax Department and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had endorsed banning of cryptocurrencies.

The draft bill for banning cryptocurrency has been in the works for some time with Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg leading the exercise.

While strict law would soon be in place to deal with people indulging in trade of cryptocurrency, India is likely to have its own digital currency.

said an official.

How do you Indian folks deal with this?

Draft Law Proposes 10-year Jail Term for Dealing in Cryptocurrency