Topic: Reserve Bank of India Governor, Raghuram Rajan, Speaks about Bitcoin (Read 3242 times)

Bitshares solves the volatility issue with pegged assets and vitalik likes seignorage type system which creates wrong incentives.. However watch out for bitshares and maybe the governor can be directed at it to see if it solves all of the problems they are worried about.

No concerns until the IT department gets involved. 
Right now, it is only the RBI....

Oh no, are they tracking me?

I wonder if they are looking at individuals and tracking their assets. I haven't put any cash into it yet partly to stay away till it gets on a sound legal footing.

I had a small conversation with K C Misra in 2013 who is now retired as the general manager of RBI. So rest assured, it is undoubtedly clear that RBI officials at high levels are well aware of Bitcoins and its usage in India.

just fixed/edited it, it should be working now. 

The youtube video in OP is not working...

Being from the financial background.He would probably would have known about bitcoins.
Nice to hear, he didn't just reject it, but supported new technologies coming up in the future.

I agree, Mr. Rajan has exceptional foresight.  The fact that he's saying that we will be moving towards a cashless society in the context of bitcoin is very noteworthy. 

I like your enthusiasm.  Before we start a world wide revolution, let's begin with India. 

Let's systematically approach all of these companies in 2015.  Its time we put India on the bitcoin map!  If we see that there is a market need for any one of these companies to accept bitcoin, perhaps we can all approach them together, like at the same time.   

I put together this google spreadsheet to keep track of all the companies that we're bringing up here:  http://bit.ly/1wX9Fcc

Please keep the suggestions coming. 

Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.  After having been in the bitcoin scene for a couple years now, I've come to the conclusion that the price of bitcoin is really one of the least exciting aspects of bitcoin.  Once you come to term with the fact that bitcoin is the internet of money, or that it is digital gold, or that it is an *almost* free protocol for value transfer, or that its a million other amazing things, that's when the fun begins.   

See, large merchants in India will benefit directly by accepting bitcoin.  By accepting bitcoin, they may reduce the number of fraud charges occurring online down to zero.  How amazing is that? 

They may also reduce their cost down to zero (whereas credit card companies often charge upward of 2 or 3%). 

So as you can see, by having a large merchant like Microsoft or Dell accept bitcoin, it DOES create downward pressure on the bitcoin price, you are right.  But at the same time, there is an ever growing demand for bitcoin.  People are buying bitcoin like never before, and this trend will continue because companies like Microsoft and Dell are accepting bitcoin.  So bitcoin has become this entity which serves multiple purposes for different people. 

Regarding price, I recommend that people not put more than 1% of their total wealth into bitcoin.  Keep in mind that bitcoin is still very early and very experimental.  Do not invest more than you can afford to lose.  Having said that, in the next 10 years, I still reckon that the price of each bitcoin will be multiple orders of magnitude higher than what it is today.  I say this because once large scale financial institutions get involved, once the average person is easily able to put a little bit of their investment portfolio into bitcoin, then we'll have the next upward spike.  When that'll take place?  Who knows...

Mr. Rajan has an uncanny ability to predict things in financial world, before the rest of the world. He also predicted 2008 recession while serving at IMF, while everyone opposed him.

A reasonable view of the situation.

We would like them suddenly declare they are all for Bitcoin, we have to understand that they can't take decisions lightly. Besides, when the warning was issued last time, I thought it was not so bad, after all if it made some Indians stay away from investing at that time, it saved their money. So in hindsight they made the correct announcement.

Stop spreading FUD. This guy creating LaxmiCoin which never took off - https://twitter.com/mittsdaki

Cryptocurrencies are not officially supported by any country atm , let alone laxmi coin and that too by RBI which has no clear policy on Bitcoin or any other cryptos .

it was never backed by the central bank.
its just a rumor that heated the market once.
The coin is going to come out soon, but it will fail if they don't bring any new innovation along them.

you mean a central bank created that coin
i never heard about this, if it was backed by a central bank of country then it should be a boom

What about laxmi Coins?I think they are of RBI itself.

 Most Indian's earn bitcoins to exchange it later with fiat money but if there will be shops available who can accept BTC then it will be super cool.

Would unocoin be contacting these guys and asking them to accept bitcoin?
If they accept it, it would be a world wide revolution and bitcoin price will actually go up because then people will start using btc as an actual currency! This would also bring a lot of demand for bitcoin in India.

I would like to see these guys accepting btc too:
5) Shopkeeper near my home
6) Big Bazaar
7) The Mobile Store
Everyone

I would like to see companies like Bill Desk / Bill Junction to be added.
In one shot, you would be able to make any utility bill payment through bitcoins.
You wouldn't need to wait for Airtel to accept, then Vodafone to accept, then Idea to accept....

Edit - We seem to be digressing from talking about Raghuram Rajan's views. Other points can be discussed in separate threads.