Bitcoin Forum

With the Chinese driving the bitcoin market at breakneck speeds now, I'm kind of wondering when India will "jump on board".

Does anyone know much about the Indian market and have any thoughts on what is happening or will happen there?

1st conference bangalore mid Dec!

I bet the reason you think of India because of its population is second to China, so the effect would be the same huh?

You're so wrong its not even funny. This is why the Westerns still dont understand crap about Chinese and its country,

He did not even make a statement, so how can he be "so wrong its not even funny"? You are a fucking idiot, no wonder you have so many people ignoring you.

The fact that he thinks they still havent jumped on board....Also read the damn title idiot.

It must be getting tense in India with the pressure on the Rupee and limits to Gold imports.

Chinese like gold Indian like gold, they both produce poo tons of population.

But the reason btc is doing so well in China pry because the asic chips are made there. And the news spreaded as some Chinese geeks like FC has become multimillionaire in 6 months. China is like btc silicon valley.

Before asic, btc was unheard of in China.

ASIC was only a weapon, the ammo is the Chinese culture.

I just landed in Thiruvananthapuram and will be attending the conference up north in December. Some people were just arrested smuggling gold into the airport here. India is ripe for the coin.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/thiruvananthapuram-8-held-at-airport-for-smuggling-gold/430003-62-126.html

India lags pretty far behind China in tech infrastructure and development, so I'm guessing you won't see the same kind of large-scale explosion there for a while. Though the INR about to implode does put on some pressure.

If everyone in India starting using bitcoin......

Bitcoin is getting popular in india these days but now a single bitcoins price is higher than a average indian's one month's salary so most peoples are buying small amounts only.

what about a single mBTC? the transition has to happen sooner or later :)

I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing bitcoin adoption on a real level in Africa 1st.  (as a payment system, not speculative)

- African culture is already highly mobile. Despite what "we" think, they're reasonable technologically advanced and...
- Already familiar with virtual/mobile/digital payments system and...
- Already familiar with alternative currencies. (Liberty Reserve prior to shutdown)

With a history of failed local currencies, I imagine they might be eager to jump on the bandwagon of something that is less likely to collapse under massive hyper inflation/corruption - especially since it cannot be controlled by whatever corrupt polictician happens to be in play at that time - plus lack of an existing credit card infrastructure may make bitcoin the next logical step in their financial evolution. If handled correctly, this could be big in Africa, could help them enter the global marketplace and help liberate them from their current issues.


We shall see.

I thought this was going to be a nuclear topic.

Yeah, I was like, "When Pakistan gets nukes, most likely."

Wonder the traffic https://buysellbitco.in/ recieves.

I certainly hope that is the case - I'd love to see Africa as part of a new economical paradigm, free from the corrupt governments both within and without.

Buttercoin is launching in India next year, if I remember correctly from the podcast I listened to it's set to launch there in Jan-Feb 2014.  That should give it a big boost.

Would be nice. I look at it similar to how China doesn't really have landline phones, they skipped that whole step and went right to wireless. In the same way, hopefully Africa just goes right to Crypto and skips the bullshit -which of course has many other positive implications.

<ot>
Pakistan has been a nuclear power for a while. They have an estimated 100-120 nuclear warheads currently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons
</ot>

Too hot weather for them to mine, think of the cooling issues...

if only i could find a way to directly extract *usable* energy from heat, thus creating cool.. and energy.. well then money wouldn't be a problem.

1. A lot of Indians are starting to get wealthy.  Also, many Indians in the US send money home and the situation isn't that great.  Sometimes the money doesn't make it for various reasons or the fees are very high.

2. And the Indians bought more gold than any other country, so now that gold imports are regulated, they need somewhere else to put their money that the government can't regulate.

3. A lot of Indians work in high-tech jobs, so the understanding of computers and encryption won't be a big turnoff for them.

So I think that India is ripe for bitcoin.

IT Customer Service isn't exactly "high-tech" :P

No, but coding and software development is.

High tech enough to have a PC at home and understand how to use it.

1st of all, nice name. 2nd, yes. And develop software. I've hired several decent software developers on guru.com from India. Plus with my day job, I work with a girl from India and find her to be quite technically competent. They're better at technology than help desk support. 'nuff said.

I work with some companies in India who provide pharmaceuticals around the world.   I have repeatedly requested that they get on board with Bitcoin because I have to wire them monthly, with $40+ in fees.  The responses I have gotten from them have been strange and frustrating.  First they said this to me:

"pls click on the link, i am been trying different banks but as of now bitcoins are not allowed in india.
If there is any positive response i will let you know.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-08-14/news/41409715_1_bitcoin-gox-virtual-currency"

I replied to him that there are exchanges he might be able to use which allow it conversion to fiat.  He replied:

"Here in india we are banned from using bitcoins for pharma exports. If we are found using bitcoins we will be banned forever ."

Made it sound like Bitcoin was known, and has already been completely restricted by Indian authorities.  I told him his information must not be correct.  He replied:

"I cant take cash out bitcoin for pharma exports. what will i get by telling a lie to you, i will loose business which i never want to do.
i will check again from a different state."

I asked him to check again (lol) ... he wrote back:

"https://buysellbitco.in/
I got a company who deals in bitcoins and it is working in india.
The charges are too high and it will not work out for me. They charge 50$ for a transaction of 7 bitcoins which is equal to 3000$.
Why cant you use western union or money gram instead?"

So either people in India are trying to scam bitcoin users or ... i dont know whats going on there.  Restrictions, excessive fees?  All seems completely backwards to what Bitcoin is all about.

Sounds like horse shit to me. But I don't know for sure. Perhaps I am missing something, but couldn't an exchange do an international wire into an Indian bank account, even with a "lack" of Indian exchanges?  (Looks alot like https://buysellbitco.in is an exchange tho....)

In anycase, check out this Wall Street Journal article:

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/10/10/one-result-of-the-feds-tapering-plan-surging-bitcoin-downloads-in-india/

Together, Brazil and India posted the greatest growth in digital currency downloads among the 30 countries with the most bitcoin downloads of all time. Across the globe, bitcoin downloads are still increasing, but at a slower rate–in the U.S., downloads of the digital currency increased 7.82% in the third quarter, compared with a 9.8% average for the 30 countries.

My whole point to him was:  "How does the bank know what you are doing anyways?  All they see are cash in cash out.  Sure, its to a bitcoin exchange, but that doesn't implicate what you are being paid for, specifically at all"

Indeed.

No, that's not the issue. The issue is that India, like China, has exchange controls on money. A legal way around those exchange controls is valuable.

Until 2012, India didn't tax gold imports. Now they do, at 10%. Hence gold smuggling. India has been tightening up their exchange controls lately, so if Bitcoin starts being used as a way to convert rupees to something more useful outside India, there will probably be Bitcoin controls.

China, on the other hand, is loosening their exchange controls. The economy in China is so strong they don't really need them.

Those were some of my suspicions. I'm not well acquainted with the Indian market though, but it seems like bitcoins are a fantastic fit for it.

I imagine quite a few Indians wanting to send money back to their families in India from Australia would see the benefit in using Bitcoin as a lower fee means of transmitting it.

http://www.trafficestimate.com/buysellbitco.in

JCM Pharmacy take Bitcoin, not sure where they are based but they ship from India at least.

I was asking myself this exact question the other day.

Their interest will be proportional with their wealth, however in India you are either very rich or very poor - currently the very rich are not buying bitcoin.  But that will soon change, if and when we hit < $1000 p/btc.  

Its important to remember that India has a population of 1.2bn...just a small increase in publicity and btc could really get big over there.

That's the thing. With so many people, a bit of bitcoin publicity could spark a massive upsurge in adoption. 1.2 billion people is simply massive.

A better local exchange might help, but I don't know enough about their banking system to comment on what would make buying easier for people there.

Still long way to go. Seems like due to some restrictions put by Indian government , we still don't have a proper btc exchange website. (People are still doing p2p trading). Volumes are probably less than 10BTC a day.

I was thinking the same thing...my wife was going on holiday to India, and I was thinking how to send money over there via BTC so she doesn't have to carry several thousand dollars with her (her safety being my concern)...however, doing a bit of looking around I couldn't find an easy way for her to get it converted back to Rupees upon arrival...

I think this is a potentially large missed opportunity, not just for India, but world travelers in general. Imagine a "BTC Exchange" (just like the money exchangers) at the airport...show up and get cash in local currency (with a tiny bit taken out for commission).  This would allow travelers to travel safely and not worry about getting robbed while falling asleep or something waiting for a connecting flight.

What needs to be done to make this happen? I see WU and MG ads all over India. They need the magic of the coin.

Yeah, bitcoin ATMs at the airport (or major cities) would be nice.

The laws of thermodynamics would like to have a word with you.

There are some buyers/sellers on localbitcoins:

https://localbitcoins.com/country/IN

It would certainly be possible to extract usable energy from the heat produced by mining. Somebody could design a mining rig which is water cooled (I'm sure they already exist?) - the water gets heated up in the process of cooling the ASIC chips. This heated water could then be circulated to provide central heating. This would mean that you could use the energy that you were going to use for heating anyway, and put it to work offsetting the heating bill by mining bitcoins.

EDIT:

Ah I see, this wouldn't be useful in India haha. I don't know if you could extract the heat energy and use it to power a cooling sytem. In theory it's possible but in practice I'd imagine it would be far too complicated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine#Overview
(Note that this also applies to refrigerators, since they still have to dump the heat somewhere.)

I've done business with my friends from school (of Indian descent) for quite some time.   There have been zero fee transfers to India for years, so Bitcoin wouldn't be taking away marketshare by being 'cheaper.'   Faster, sure... but then it's slightly more in the fee area, not the mention the current lack of liquidity of converting BTC to INR.   India also has some serious anti money laundering barriers that Bitcoin would have to hurdle (in terms of setting up exchanges, regular people receiving incoming wire transfers from exchanges, etc.).       

Most of the major Indian banks: HDFC, SBI, Cosmos, etc. all have zero fee transfer systems to India.  There are a handful of private companies as well like Remit2India.   They make money from the float (invested interest returns from funds held during the 'delay' or 'processing time'), the same way Paypal makes a lot of its income.   It takes about 4-5 days to use these services to pretty much send funds for free from the US to India for example.   For an awful lot of Indians, because of the culture, a slow and free service is better than a fast and inexpensive service.

IMO the pharmaceutical route is one of the key vectors to India.  JCM Pharma, The Swiss Pharmacy, etc. are just the first wave.  It's one of the few payment methods that can't be shut down, and the demand for prescription drugs is as endless as the demand for narcotics.  People need their meds and will find a way to workaround the system.   

I can't see Bitcoin catching in the near future. As pointed out, money remittance is not an issue, and the BTC as an investment is very volatile. Even now, people watch stocks with a wary eye, and with banks (with government backing) offering 8-9% interest there is not much reason to risk it.

All this 'India' hype is just greedy nerds trying to find out if there are more people out there ready to hand them over money.

Two can play that game, sumantso!:

I can see Bitcoin catching on in the near future.  As pointed out, gold imports into the country have been blocked by a fearful government, eliminating a traditional method that Indian families use to save wealth and hedge against inflation.  Although banks offer interest rates of 8-9%, reported inflation is 7% (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/inflation-cpi) and actual inflation is very likely higher.  With gold unavailable and Rupees inflated away in savings accounts, there is now more than ever a reason for Indians to risk a small investment into bitcoin.  

Indian population will be bigger than china at year 2040. They are soon bi big marketplace for anything.

Investing requires a 'trust'. Its kind of a culture/perception thing that stocks are bad. Bitcoin with all the crazy volatility is even worse. Sure, there will be investors, but nothing in numbers to make any dent.

Inflation has always been high and the central rates stay usually a bit ahead of them. Keeping money in banks is regarded as the 'safest' and also allows to claim some tax savings; and if you put in pension fund you get tax free interest. Also, a lot of the gold investment is in jewellery - tangible things which can also be shown off (and boy, do they show off ;D).

A bit unrelated, but I see discussions on these boards regarding switch to mBTC and how it shouldn't matter. But when 1 BTC costs 2-3 months the average monthly salary of the target group, it simply won't work; notwithstanding the divisibility.

I may be completely wrong with my prediction, but I just don't see BTC catching on in India.

For KFC, sure; for 950cc Yamaha - not so much.

Never heard of travel cash card? It's exactly for such purposes.
It's not for microtransactions, because of the fees.

Not to mention you can step into any ATM with a VISA/Master Debit card and take out money with 2-3% fee.

'getting robbed' - yeah, coz anybody who lands in India has a higher chance of getting robbed than anywhere else ::)

I think your strongest point is that the culture in India doesn't bode well for highly-speculative investments, and I half agree.  (Another thing preventing adoption in India is lack of reliable/easy access to the required technology, in my opinion.)

But on the other hand, India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India).  It is a young country full of 20-somethings and 30-somethings with strong math skills and a keen interest in technology.  If they begin to see bitcoin as an escape hatch to a better and more modern life, perhaps they will throw culture to the wind and start to take the plunge.  

My take:  Bitcoin is a binary investment with a positive expected value.  Rational people will eventually place a bet, regardless of where they live.  

Apart from the bi bi thing , do you really thing they will be the  bi bi thing for everything when the average person in India lives in a state of poverty?
Also the title :
"When Will India Explode?" made me think first at a nuclear war between India and Pakistan , not about bitcoins.

Well i don't think there is a big enough market of people wanting to change their money to bitcoins only because they afraid of being robbed in the airport...

They may get bigger in numbers, but they'll probably not get bigger in economy. China is a pretty big economy and I think india doesn't even come close.

Have some friends in india and they say its already relatively popular and growing faster and faster.

What do you mean relatively popular? Like occasionally tv and web coverage or that some people might of heard about bitcoins already.

India will continue to be a relatively small player
Just don't see mass adoption happening anytime soon

What people fail to see is that while india has a massive population they lack that class of newly rich people that can throw money on bitcoin like they do on pretty much everything  :P

RenegadeMind, India has started accepting bitcoins with no regulations governing usage in their own state and this is a good news for the cryptocurrencies.