Bitcoin Forum

News came today as Indian finance minister finally clarified that they will take actions to ban all cryptocurrencies.
https://qz.com/1148361/budget-2018-indias-government-wants-to-kill-bitcoin-but-it-loves-blockchain/
https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2018/02/01/india-to-curb-cryptocurrency-use-while-embracing-blockchain
http://www.keralanews247.com/budget-2018-arun-jaitley-speaks-about-bitcoin/

Personally I believe it's a mistake; but hey we are talking about government, which is naturally should be against mostly free and decentralized power of cryptocurrencies.

So, don't panic people. Hold your coins.

Edit 1: After all the news, maybe it's early to say India will ban it soon. Misinterpretation to say India will ban everything. But today's news showed their stance about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. We will follow further news...

Edit 2: For people who doesn't know how big India in cryptoworld: India is making 1 of every 10 bitcoin transactions anytime.

Is this true? Indian gov wants to ban BTC?

I would suppose some days later the India gov will say it's a mistake again like Korean gov.

Yes, it's true. That's why bitcoin dropped suddenly last 1hr.
India is accounting 1 of ever 10 bitcoin transaction in the world. So you can imagine the impact.

https://qz.com/1148361/budget-2018-indias-government-wants-to-kill-bitcoin-but-it-loves-blockchain/

Headline said - India’s government WANTS to kill bitcoin, but it loves blockchain

That's quite bad for crypto. This has got to be the reason to the sudden drop of btc price.
Hope the Indian government will enlighten themselves and open up to cryptocurency like many other countries do.
But look at it in the optimistic point of view, you can btc at low price..hold to it cause eventually exchange will bounce back.

India is known for their strict religious laws. Cryptos as such are representing a threat to their religious and financial aspects. They don't want to embrace the progress that the crypto market is providing. Instead of joining like some of the other countries they are trying to vanquish the crypto for their people. Bad choice ba my opinion and in a long aspect that will make cryptos only stronger.

How? Will they ban internet?

This news has already impacted the value of Bitcoin for the past hour or so. But do not panic, I am sure that this will just be like what happened to South Korea last time, the will eventually realize it and will change the "BAN" to just regulations with taxes or so, well what do you expect, government will always allow something as long as they are getting something out of it. :(

Exactly my thoughts. The collective power of all the governments in the world cannot stop bitcoin since it is a dominant force which will only continue to power forward no matter what which is why I feel that the news posted by op seems like FUD and nothing else. Best to ignore such FUD in my opinion since the Indian government know that they can never ban bitcoin, but they are simply trying to regulate it which will obviously not work out at the end of the day. More and more FUD is driving the value of bitcoin down currently and am expecting a rally in the middle of this month.

What is most stupid about the indian finance minister is that he says "we will ban cryptocurrencies but we will encourage blockchain in payment systems".
Is it a joke?

Thanks for the information, I think India is a developing country, a lot of citizens,and crime rates are high, and I see countries that ban bitcoin are more developing countries. they want to reduce the criminal rate by banning bitcoin, because the Indian government judges that bitcoin has always been a criminal facility.

This is another means India government want to implement taxation on cryptocurrency. Let us just wait and see in the next few weeks what will be the outcome of the banning.

I do not know if this is certainly true but if it is then this explain the dip in the prices. This rumor was already circulating back in 2017.

They should reconsider because i know some people back there are using bitcoin for their livelihood. Back in the day i chatted with an indian where they use decode  captcha and they will earn a few sats.

I hope they reconsider.

They will glue your hands together if caught using bitcoin. I mean how dare you try to further enrich your life by using a powerful currency run on powerful technology when you could be using our government issued currency that's doing so well that why most of India is not poor at all. It is like china banning facebook and all that crap. It will never work.


They know they can't really control crypto so they want to use it's technology to create their own currency that they can control.

Op have to change the concept as
The original Points   Finance minister said Its not legal tender . And its been said form 2013 December . The same quote repeated . Stop creating fud am creating new thread about healthy discussion happened in union budget.
 

I guess they will send a policeman to every household, schools and companies across India and the coops will search for cryptos on every HDDs, USB sticks, scraps of paper and cloud accounts. Probably they will finish in 200-300 years :).

If you guys go through that document in detailed manner then we will come to know that they are going to explore the advantages of the block chain which means they are going to use it. So the guy Jatley whose finance minister will be going to open the roadmap for the exploration. I also see that southern India has already adopted the block chain in proactive ways and they are having the tie ups with Swedish startup ChromaWay! That is actually more good news than bad I believe. This is major change but the whole idea seems to be going towards the positive direction only. I think its no need to panic.  But the effect of this news can be seen clearly on the todays market.

Hi,

So you are saying it changes nothing, right?

I agree with you, this is not a reason to start panic selling. Still, the news is quite interesting.

I read the articles and... Well, I am not sure that what they are planning to do is actually technically feasible. I truly don't know. I understand the concept behind it and the idea, but I don't see how they can think it will work. Internet is an open world, without any frontiers and... Well, even though you have a physical address, you can always manage to change it and go through another one, anywhere in the world!

So, of course the Indian government is planning to prevent such "cryptos" from spreading and to become too powerful. The idea is understandable. The means of action though...

Well as far as taxation is concerned it is already being told that you have to pay short term tax i.e if you sell within 3 years and if profit is earned then its 30% of the profit. If you are from India than do consult your CA and file proper taxation. Also in coming days thing will become more clearer as what is the exact outcome of that statement.

Exact words from Mr. Jaitley: "The Government does not consider Cryptocurrencies "as Legal Tender or Coin" and will take all measures to eliminate the use of these Crypto Assets in Financing "Illegitimate Activities or a Part of the Payment System".

Wrong interpretation: Bitcoin is illegal.
Correct interpretation: Bitcoin cannot be used as legal tender. Bitcoin cannot be used for illegitimate activities.

Is India a big player in bitcoin? My impression was that adoption in India was less in absolute numbers than in South America, where it has taken off in places like Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.

The only reason some Indians buy bitcoin is because the Indian govt has capital controls in place for fiat currencies - so perhaps a few rich folk are buying it.

Oh, please give me a break with all these new news.

I see it this way - newbie creates account - newbie writes "No need to panic, random country will ban bitcoin"
And in topic newbie writes - Don't panic, they might ban bitcoin.

Do you know what FUD is?  ::)

Where is this ban ban news coming from. It like people now  searching for news on cryptocurrency ban on google  , if India Government want to ban cryptocurrency they are free to do whatever they like. This will only affect their citizens that are dependent on crypto only.

governors against crypto world, they only want control people and their relations

Indian Prime Minister Mr. Modi tried to make the whole country cashless and he banned cash without a prior notice last year - India is still using cash, he tries to kill Bitcoin? trust me, people are smarter than him.

There's nothing new with that news and it's happening not only in India but almost in every countries around the world, others are just discreet and driving a campaign against the Bitcoin other are too noisy to say their disagreements with the Bitcoin, any government would want to regulate if not banning the Bitcoin because they get nothing from the Bitcoin, it does not have any tax.

India contributes around 10% of the entire bitcoin transactions happening through the network. This time the regulation from Indian government has lead to the drop in value of bitcoin. That too, it has lead to a drastic 5% drop in the market capital of the  bitcoin into circulation.

More FUD from dumb idiots who find themselves in positions of power.

The main reason why Governments are trying to ban all this is tax evasion, if you are honest enough to help the Governments by paying your taxes, then they might not take such decisions. I am not taking their side, but it could have saved India from such a decision. Though, I would like to reiterate to what our FM Jaitley exactly said:


They agree with Blockchain technology and they're interested in applying it in various things to remove corruption (though, I believe that's never going to happen).


He never said it is illegal, but Government is interested in eliminating use of crypto assets in illegal activities such as terrorism funding or extortion activities. They are not considering it as legal tender or coin, but then, nobody can stop us from trading or working for Bitcoins.

My question is:
What about those who are "earning" it by doing work / providing services / even if trading, and are paying taxes for the same?
Why should such people be punished due to the illicit activities that gets carried by the wrong people? Total injustice, isn't it?

The people who are in India, don't get panic. Don't sell your valuable Bitcoin at low prices,due to the ban news in India.The government of India may plan to regulate the Bitcoin in their country and to get some taxes from their people.So don't get panic by seeing the ban news in India and sell your bitcoin at low price.

Seriously? Who's next? Actually, if we look through the countries that are banning or about to ban BTC they're all not western world countries (except for Japan and South Korea, but they're changing minds now). I think that most of the educated people from developing countries that are against Bitcoin would rather leave the country, than accept these conditions.

Even though there are a lot of transactions that were happening in India, the volume was not that big. So I am wondering why such a big impact on the market with that news. It may be that, people in India have started dumping their holdings and its a temporary effect. Fingers crossed, but bitcoin going back to 8000s would cause bigger problems overall.

As per the local NEWS gov is not going to ban the crytocoins. If a investor or trader is paying tax accordingly then there is no problem. Second thing declared that no crypto-currency is being recognized by gov(not a legal tender) that means you can not open any shop, or trade any thing with cryptocoins.  

governors only could control but this current will continued.

It's hard to say, if we take into consideration what just happened today:

On one hand, right after the FUD news about India banning cryptocurrencies, the BTC price began to plummet, so one could say that the are a indeed a big player in the crypto market given by how the market reacted to such news (very simplistic view but still..).
On the other hand, we need to consider that when such things happens (a sudden drop), the whole things is bound to have a 'snowball effect', weak hands start panicking because of the red numbers and 'panic sell' kicks in, and what seems to be a small -5% drop because of FUD, a few hours later becomes a 10% or %15 drop, it still different from the time when the FUD about South Korea (big player) banning cryptos were spread, the whole market went down in less than a hour.

All in all, the downtrend has stopped for now, people have started to realized that this 'ban' nonsense was nothing more than another FUD attack from the media.

Let all of them ban bitcoin and then bitcoin will find its price level and continue to grow from strength to strength. Overtime Bitcoin will still overcome and blockchain technology  will still take over the financial transaction globally.

Beginning of 2017 is full of FUD news and same about this panic from India
Bitcoin is not banned in India – community lashes out at misinterpreted news published by certain news sites (https://ambcrypto.com/bitcoin-not-banned-india-community-lashes-misinterpreted-news-published-certain-news-sites/)

Every month his country wants to ban bitcoin

So where is your Bitcoin Founder? Do you want to keep scammers in INDIA? please show me the proof of Bitcoin?

Byebye India have fun kissing your governments buttcheeks.

It is not improbable that this happens from time to time, a government ban on crypto exchange. Might spread even further if China doesn't come forward with regulation. Or Estonia has to convince the rest of the EU of the blockchain technology, but I don't think people are looking for signs of intelligence in the EU leaders and politicians anymore, not for years. The cashflow worries many governments. Especially the amount of scams are something everyone should be worried about, because that means part of the crypto market isn't "real", which always backfires at the price of BTC and ETH. In the end what the technology needs is community and government support.

But much is happening lately, we'll see who survives this in some time  :)

It takes only one government to organize a decent cybercrime unit against the massive amount of ICO scamming that makes up for most of the ICO's. If fraud isn't allowed to grow in the first place, then the market will be less affected by it in general. Seems so easy... a real authority on ICO's, instead of all those rating websites. They trade ratings/reviews/etc for views/clicks/etc, which isn't a crime of course but it can be compromised by outsiders.

Its a damn FUD. India isn't planning to do such for now. Think about it, i read articles on how India is suffering from demonetisation and then implementing GST. India is already facing a lot of consequences. They banning cryptocurrencies won't help the situation. And a lot of Indians are known to use bitcoin. And Indians are also known for having massive riots. I also read articles stating how the prime Minister of India wants to make India a cashless economy.

India seems to be one of the leading country into the cryptocurrency related activities. Particularly into trading large number of users were found. Maybe government might make taxation over the entire transaction made with relation with cryptocurrency. This might be the expectation of the government, but media misinterpreted it in the entirely opposite manner causing a drastic downfall.

It appears to be the end of the road for crypto currencies in India. Bitcoin is not something that will stop. It will flourish with or without government’s support. After de-monetisation, old notes were being traded at 80% of their value. Value comes from the perception and if people find value in Bitcoins, people will trade in Bitcoins. Finance minster, in his budget speech today (Feb. 01), stated that the government will do everything to discontinue the use of bitcoin and other virtual currencies in India. He reiterated that India does not recognize them as legal tender and will instead encourage blockchain technology in payment systems. However, as stated before Bitcoin will continue to flourish with or without government’s support.

In dia won't ban crypto lol

Indian politicians talk the whole day and 99% is bullshit and they forget they ever said those things.
He doesn't even really know what this whole thing is, 2 hours later he just might have invested in this thing by recommendation of his wife lol

What a fuckin FUD spearing jerks in this forum. I wonder where are the admins?

I know that India does have a very big population just like China,but how could India is ranked in this list in the first place,they do not have any exchanges listed in the top hundred and how on earth you could claim that one tenth of a transaction is done in India ,if you have any reports regarding that as i cannot understand how come that is possible.

A lot of fake outbursts about the prohibitions of bitcoins have spawned recently. I think that this is also a fake, aimed at creating panic among investors.

Yes, because India consider cryptocurrencies as a illegal. The government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of these cryptoassets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system.

The government does not consider crypto currencies as a legal tender,that is a fair assumption but does they say that crypto currencies are illegal and they will be banning them,i did not hear that part but they said about the illegal trend that might happen when it comes to bitcoin and other alt coins,i am sure they will come up with a regulation that would monitor the flow of money rather than banning it altogether.

Bitcoin will one day be worth many times over its current value, this is now a buying opportunity to all bitcoin believers. It will one day be scarce and thereby more expensive..just like gold.