Topic: India makes ownership of Bitcoin criminal offense - How to respond? - page 6. (Read 1481 times)

During the initial phase (around 2014-15), there was a lot of misinformation related to Bitcoin and that was when a lot of the countries tried to ban cryptocurrency. But that changed once it was known to all that only a minuscule fraction of the Bitcoin transactions are linked to illegal transactions. A lot of the countries which previously tried to ban them reversed their decision and made Bitcoin legal in their jurisdiction. But India seems to be moving in the opposite direction. They are trying to ban Bitcoin, although it was legal earlier.

Regardless of them, their governments don't like this and everyone has to abide by the rules and the country in which they live. I think this is not too new in this market, and then everything will come to an end for this market, it will not happen and vice versa we still see Bitcoin with new values. I remember many countries claiming to ban the use of cryptocurrencies, and gradually I see them accepting and studying it , like that, we will see their government again one day make another decision.

Why do you guys fall prey to such predatory tactics all the time? Hilarious. This isn't the first time this happened with the current Indian government and it certainly won't be the last in my opinion.

This is just another useless bill(most likely) which will probably be tossed aside. They have threatened crypto investors with jail etc multiple times before, but achieved nada at the end of the day.

Stop losing it everytime the media publicizes this crap for their own benefit. Just my 2 cents.

I guess they are primarily concerned with two aspects - conversion of cryptocurrency to fiat (and vice versa) and the purchase of various items from online marketplaces using cryptocurrency. Your point is very valid. It is very difficult to prove the ownership of a cryptocurrency wallet, even if it is having links to a KYC-enabled exchange. Unlike the case with bank/demat accounts, there is nothing that links a particular individual to a certain cryptocurrency wallet address.

But then you need to understand that the education level of ministers in the current Indian cabinet is not that great. Many of them have no idea about cryptocurrency and are mostly dependent on the bureaucrats for all this information. The bureaucrats are also not much better. Only when they implement the law, they are going to find out that it is such a blunder.

i get that they can shut down exchanges that take fiat but how exactly do you ban ownership of something intangible, like are they going to come to your house and scan your computer for the keys or invent a metal detector that detects ledger and trezor or something

The budget session is divided in to two parts, and if I am not wrong the bill may be introduced during the second part. The first part is scheduled to run from 1st February to 13th February and during this session the priority will be taken up by discussion related to the current budget and the implementation of the farm laws. After that there is a recess from 14th February to 7th March.

The parliament will meet again on 8th March. The second phase of the budget session will run from 8th March to 8th April, and during this time most of the bills that are on queue will be taken up and tabled before the parliament.

I can feel the disappointment from the crypto community in India regarding the fate of crypto in India, because it looks like the Indian
government is very strict on crypto. Several times planning to ban cryptocurrency, then often the Indian government issued negative
statements against cryptocurrency. Hopefully the crypto community in India can convince the government to be friendly with crypto,
because the Indian people need cryptocurrency to help restore the economy.

The budget session of the parliament runs for a month and in this session the bill will be placed in both the houses. Now it depends on the government when they want to present the bill. It all depends on the government whether they want to priotize this bill.

That's true. The logic is that this bill is essentially the same as the one which was formulated by Subhash Chandra Garg in 2018. Back then, he had such stupid provisions, such as 10 year jail term for owning cryptocurrency. But during the budget speech, there was no mention about cryptocurrency by Nirmala Seetharaman (finance minister). But that can't be taken as a positive sign, because the budget speech was very short (~90 mins) and it is not mandatory that the planned bill should be discussed during the speech.

If it passes it's going to be a dead law like one of those laws in the UK where you can shoot a Scott found carrying a bow and arrows in York

How are they going to prove that you hold Bitcoins? How are they going to find spots in jail to hold people if this is more a misdemeanor than a crime? Are they going to put people in jail with thieves and murderers? It's going to be counterproductive and make them a lot of enemies in a very short time.

Pretty stupid of them to even attempt it.

Bitcoin is considered as a breathtaking cryptocurrency. People are preferring bitcoin more than other currencies. But it is shocking that in most of the countries, transaction of bitcoin is illegal.
Even, in India bitcoin is considered as an illegal transaction system. India is planning to introduce law to ban bitcoin. It is very difficult to operate bitcoin in India. As governments can't control bitcoin they don't like it at all. Some analysts are saying that Indian government may be planning to issue their own official cryptocurrency which will be controlled by governments or financial authorities. The main purpose behind it is to gain financially, as India has a big population, so it will certainly have impact. India has also issued punishment for using private cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Traders and investors are not happy with this decision.

Thread title is overtly sensationalized. India has not made ownership of Bitcoin a criminal offense yet. We do not the final form of the bill yet. Whole industry is eagerly waiting to know the final form of this bill.

Sorry to burst your bubble but that's the Indian market, and as you can see on any graphics that shows the trading in the world it had zero efect, Elon twitting one meme about bitcoin has more impact on price than the entire parliament of India and its central bank board committing seppuku.
10 million 100 million, write every number you can if all their holdings are not touching one-tenth of coinbase volume it's nothing.
Just imagine if this proposal would have come from the SEC  


Before that, you would need a volume a bit higher than 10 million. I understand the reason while you try to picture things this way but that's the reality proven tens of times in the past, news from India is not making a dent in the price in any way.
Leave the patriotism aside and try to be objective, in the current situation I doubt that even news from Japan or even a few countries in Europe (except the big 5)  would swing anything, all eyes are focused on the US.

Look even on this forum, is anyone running for the hills hearing the news? Nope!

Yeah, they need to be careful because of all the country in the world India has the most hostile country in terms of their national law. From the start, Indian people have faced this issue for years now and they're not gonna make it right since the bill has already been passed. However, India has also put some pressure on the investors of BTC since they implemented this bill. If I were living there I should be careful where I get or send my BTC because once it passes on some criminal address, it would be a pain in the ass.

No, it isn't like that. There are around 8-9M Indian crypto traders who bought or sold cryptos at least once in last 12 months. The number is not small. The first day after the bill announcement, Indian market experienced a deep fall. Before 2018, Indian situation had direct co-relation with average International bitcoin price. But after the introduction of pegged coins like USDT, market is working in two way: Indian Rupee <--> USDT <--> bitcoin

Current price of US Dollar in Indian Rupee is Rs. 73. Now see the chart below:


(image courtesy: WazirX)

USDT price declined to Rs. 60 (-20% from international price) on 31st Jan. So, first hit was taken by pegged coin. With current Indian volume, impact on USD price of bitcoin would have started if price of USDT declined below the level of Rs. 54-56, after that USDT would have been saturated and bitcoin would have started falling in dollar value. But that didn't happen because Indians expected that Finance Minister would say something about the bill in budget speech but she didn't say anything making people believe that cryptocurrencies are just small petty item in government's list of agenda and bill most likely won't be passed. Hence, positivity once again kicked in Indian market on 1st Feb and USDT price is once again trading around Rs. 74-75 (1-2% premium).

I just wrote a post in Indian section highlighting my views on why the bill most likely won't get passed: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.56250260

It so amazed sometimes the behaviour of some government towards the citizens that elected them into the office and with the above information you point out I believe the current Indian government are following the same strategy used by the Chinese government before they create their own Central Bank Digital Currency but it a shame that their decision will only affect the development of the country because there's a lot blockchain Dev from India.
With that been said, due to all this issue, the recent list of countries in the world that are communist which India was excluded is totally wrong and they need to be include.

Government and their selfish habit.


We never can tell, let's wait cause the Wazirx Chairman and other cryptos related CEO will try to convince the government just like he once did. I have once before now that cryptocurrency will have many enemies due to its trend during the total lockdown, the recent surge in price, and the institution which are the major investors. Besides, I am sure the banking setting and some government are not happy as we speak.

100% agreed. I have been to India multiple times, and I can tell you that the Indian prisons are not for the light-hearted. Even if there is only a 0.0001% chance of getting caught, the vast majority of the users are going to dump their holdings. Those users who are residing in the EU and the US can post whatever they want, about disregarding the law. They fail to understand the ground reality in India.

Unfortunately, I see it is worse, they are using this term to make sure that nothing which is not issued by the state can avoid this law. It's like rather than outlawing 400 types of drugs they make a criminal offense owning every substance that is not approved, be it a drug or goldfish food.

One thing that I'm not sure how users from India will take it.
The bad news is that obviously the one above, the good news is that the market doesn't care which brings us the second bad news, seems like the Indian influence on the price is null to negative.


And yet I'm willing to bet that IF this law is passed once if you hear a knock at the door at night while not expecting any visits you will piss your pants in seconds. It will take just a  few convictions with some harsh punishments and 99% will quit. I've lived in a real dictatorship, you have no idea how effective fear is.

I am not sure whether the Supreme Court will offer any relief for the Bitcoiners. From what I understand, the duty of the supreme court is to implement the existing laws. At the most, they can check the constitutional validity of the new laws that are being passed by the parliament. In case the parliament passes this "Bill" and makes it an "Act", then the only instance where Supreme Court will turn it down is if it finds the law "unconstitutional". Under current circumstances, there is only a remote chance of something like that happening. So I agree with the political move. The best response would be to organize Bitcoiners and make sure that the ruling party is defeated in the elections.

Everyone knows what the "exceptions" mean. Under the "Make in India" program, Ambani and Adani will be provided with exceptions, so that they can come up with Jiocoin or Adanicoin. The government is full of retards, if they think that everyone would flock to purchase their shitcoin if they remove the competition. Crypto industry doesn't work like that. I tried to post a few comments clarifying that there is no evidence to link cryptocurrency to terrorist funding or tax evasion in mainstream news websites such as TOI and HT. But the BJP bots immediately flagged my comments as offensive and got them deleted.