Topic: You can't prove if someone is Holding Bitcoins | Indian Crypto Ban (Read 633 times)

I am not an Indian citizen, but I have lived there long enough to have a good understanding of the system. Going against the law is very risky in India. The entire system is corrupt, and in case they catch you then be prepared to lose all of your life savings, reputation and current job (on top of a possible prison sentence). One thing I have noticed is that the punishment for white collar crime (such as tax evasion and concealment of income) is treated by the courts more severely when compared to blue collar crimes (rapes, murder, theft.etc). You may be able to get bail within 2-3 days if you commit rape, but if you do tax evasion then it is a non-bailable offense and you may undergo considerable prison time before you get parole.

The Government itself does not have deep understanding how Bitcoin operates as immutable and cannot be cracked down by any Government. Before anybody can be jailed, there must be a convincing evidence that indeed he/she does operate and hold Bitcoin wallet. There are many exchanges to buy and trade Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies outside their jurisdiction. Don't use  paper backup in case of police search, don't store it locally on your computer and never use the system that holds your passpharse and mnemonics to login. Indian need to just be extra careful.

Even we hold bitcoin the government cannot prove it. Exactly, it is everyone’s right to own a crypto and cannot catch by the government. I am just thinking how a government can control or catch those who holds bitcoin.

According to specification of Bitcoin, Bitcoins are a peer to peer based decentralized tokens which can be held and transact electronically only. Along with this specification bitcoins transactions are completed and stored on Blockchain with SHA256 algorithm, which requires higher electric power.

In such scenario no one have control over production and distribution of Bitcoins, so currupt government with lack of knowledge and lack of willing to accept change along with fear are taking such wrong steps of banning.

Actually no government have rights to make laws and bills on things which they cannot control, distribute, produce or monitor.

Mine, hold or sell cryptocurrencies are the right of every person, and the government has no right to prohibit them. What a petty thought, the Indian government experienced a setback in my opinion.

And this is the link to the topic https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-india-rumor-10-years-prison-hodling/

You can use a VPN to move your coins. But in case you want to encash them, how you are going to do that? As long as the transaction is crypto-to-crypto, the authorities many not be able to trace back the coins to you. But once you convert the coins to fiat currency, this anonymity is lost. Selling the coins for physical cash is one of the options, but there are multiple risk factors with this method.

There are a few loopholes. But none of them are 100% risk-free. If you want to reside in India, then I would suggest that you don't deal in cryptocurrency. The legal system here is fucked up. Someone who is accused of evading $100 in taxes may get a 5 year prison term, while a criminal who has been convicted of child rape may be out in 3 months. That's how the system works here. I am seriously considering immigrating to another country, in case they ban Bitcoin here.

So that's how the government can really implement the rules, if in anyhow this laws got approved it will automatically give the authorities to search things out especially those people who they suspecting that still continuing to do this practice and still working with cryptos, it's a sad truth that if rules got implemented there's no way for crypto lovers from that place to avoid such harassment.

Being an Indian citizen, I am very worried nowadays. This proposed bill, if signed in to law is going to be disastrous. And it is very easy to get a search warrant in India. The cops may take away your laptop and mobile phone, and they will be able to prove that you own multiple cryptocurrencies. If you refuse to co-operate, then you can be charged with contempt of court.

      It's not very easy but it can be proven especially if you're in mining business and it needs an  I T expert to search the computer and through interrogation of the alleged person and aside from these I think there's so many ways  of investigating this matters .

Mining is a combination of software and hardware and to mining bitcoin now encompass huge computers that can easily identify. The software can even be traced by governments agency. If governments put a ban on cryptocurrency except someone can manipulate, it will be very difficult to do without being cut. The only thing I see by India government banning cryptocurrency and build their own government-approved digital currency is that they are going to regret it later because if developed countries are treating bitcoin with carefulness then i think it is going to be something of great values in future.

The was never a problem with holding, trading, and mining of cryptocurrency. There has been enough discussion about them in this forum. Most of us know it is not possible to track or trace cryptocurrency by the government until someone goes to the authorities and tells them about it. But, it was nice to see that you made a topic about it on the forum. I do not think now anyone can miss it.

The main issue is converting cryptocurrencies to fiat. If the Ban comes into existence all exchanges will have to close. If they close then there will be only one way to cash out and that will be the illegal way. If caught that will bring a lot of humiliation and bad name to that individual in the society and mainstream media will be at its best.

Those people who drafted this proposed bill are just stupid and they are using their traditional mindset and experience for the proposed ban. The law if passed can be a laughingstock because even in China right now I think the government has already accepted the fact that determining if someone has Bitcoin can be a big futile and inutile endeavor. It is impossible to enforce it not unless the government will be assigning a security escort to each and everyone. I am then hoping that they withdraw this bill and never allow themselves to be victimized by wrong notions and biases in this modern age of digitalization and information. This can set India so backward and future generations will be regretting of the lost opportunities allowed to slipped out of the hands of many good and innovative Indians.

The adoption of such a law by the parliament is not really possible. This is a restriction of freedoms and rights of citizens.
To control this is not possible.
Indicative sanctions - will not help!

India is building a gate with no fence around it.    They will not have the expertise to spot "hidden" private keys that are stored in plain sight. There are many ways to hide things in plain sight... Steganography is the practice of concealing a file, message, image, or video within another file, message, image, or video.

You can even circle letters and numbers within a book or just store the encrypted private key in the cloud. So, they are trying to stop a dam wall from breaking with a spoon. I would collect Crypto currencies for years and then go on a luxury holiday in a Bitcoin friendly country and spend those bitcoins on a holiday of a life time.  

This post piqued my interest and I did a little research, and it seems like the countries in South Africa that have banned bitcoin are Ecuador, Columbia, and Bolivia. I looked up cases of people actually getting arrested for just using bitcoin, and I found no examples. The only people that were punished for the use of bitcoin was when the use of crypto was directly tied to other illegal activities.

Most people use centralized exchanges due to the ease of access, but if there where more promotions put into DEXs and P2P platforms, I reckon it'll be fairly split. This doesn't mean much though, because the people who own BTC right now can sell it and not get in trouble later on, right?

I am also wondering how will they do that. People in India can still access their wallets, make transactions, trade cryptocurrencies and use it as a payment method without them getting in jail.

Obviously, people will stop accepting Bitcoin especially the merchants, shops or platforms in their country but in terms of exchanges, gambling sites, trading platforms outside their country, they can ban that but I don't think Bitcoin users will be stopped like that. There are still a lot of ways to use Bitcoin, not in their country but on the internet.

Maybe they can't prove that you are holding Bitcoin, but if they'd really want to, they could prove that you use it - whenever you'd send/receive Bitcoin, there will always be a risk that you will get deanonymized. Also, a ban would just kill all local merchant adoption - enterprenuers wouldn't want to risk jail just for supporting a payment method. So, goodbye the dream of buying groceries with Bitcoin, if Bitcoin is banned, you can only spend it on darknet markets. And if you'll try to sell your coins, you need to come up with a really good way to launder them first, which is also a crime.

People shouldn't confuse that the software works regardless of the laws with the reality of actually using it - a ban can have a huge impact on the latter.

It is going to be extremely hard for the government to pin down a man due to his Bitcoin holdings. This is the direct consequence of the anonymity feature of Bitcoin. Bitcoin portfolio does not bear any name, address, nor any personal information. One cannot therefore easily link a Bitcoin address to its supposed owner. The burden to prove beyond doubt the ownership is with the government. Good luck with that!

This is exactly why the authorities are pushing hard for the KYC implementation. Right now, a majority of the cryptocurrency users are anonymous. Once they feel that a certain threshold (say 90%) has gone through the KYC process, then it becomes easier for them to implement a blanket ban on crypto. I have seen a lot of posts here supporting KYC. But few people realize that the real aim of KYC is not to protect, but to persecute anyone who holds cryptocurrency in his wallet.

Things are different in India. I have been to that country, and it is one of the most corrupt regions in the world. Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh are able to get Indian ID cards and even passports for as little as $1,000. In case a ban is implemented there, then the cops will be very happy. Armed with the KYC data, they will detain any suspected individual who has a history of crypto trading. The laptops and mobiles will be seized and if any coins are found, then they will encash it themselves.

And that is why it is such a bad idea to go against the law in India. The American cops would look like angels in front of the Indian cops. A lot of people disappear after getting arrested by the cops, and no one has the courage to say anything against them. A few years back, I heard about an incident where a teenaged minor girl, who was kidnapped from Nepal for trafficking somehow escaped and ended up at a police station. The cops raped the girl for one week, before returning her to the same people who had kidnapped her.

Indian Bitcoin users should consider immigrating to some country, where human rights are valued. There is no other option.