Bitcoin Forum

In my country our prime minister announced PM Kisan Scheme to directly benefit the farmers and the people who are associated with agriculture. This has been distributed in three installments directly to the beneficiary's bank account. Government employees are responsible for it, but to ease it on covid lockdown relaxations were given on applications and approval. This is being used by the brokers and has scammed 110 crore rupees. Now investigation has been started and 32 crore rupees have been retrieved directly from the banks.

My question, if this has been done through bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency what'll be the remedy. Here atleast some amount is being recovered, as the transactions were made through a centralised banking services. This way does governments encourage the usage of cryptocurrencies in the future on official needs.

Source :  The Indian Express  (https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/india/pm-kisan-norms-eased-for-covid-tn-probes-rs-110-crore-fraud-18-held-6588643/lite/)

Uhh Idk if I converted it right but 110 crore equates to around $14m - $15m? Is that correct? Anw to answer your question, if this has been done through Bitcoin, there'd be no remedy needed imo. Transactions are pretty transparent, and there'd be unique id's for everyone via wallet addresses, so I doubt there'd be an issue. Even if they still did the same tactic where addresses from other towns where added, it'd still be pretty easy to trace once someone notices something, as well as it being easy to actually identify who was the perpetrator.

Yes, in terms of USD it is around $14-$15 million. As you've mentioned there'll be transparency in each and every transaction. Here what's been done is the addition of more number of fake beneficiaries, and more funds have been transferred to those accounts. As this is been done through banks they've identified and recovered the fund with the support of banks.

Just think, the same being done with bitcoin. There'll be transparency in each and every transaction, but the funds send to those fake identities can't be recovered back.

Transparency in terms of government supposedly bitcoin addresses? I'm sure there could be liability here, those bitcoin addresses should be in the hands of the official, so if something is missing, they he/she should be held liable for it. Of course they can pull the excuse that it was hack, but still as government officials, their head should roll or even gets jail time for "malversation of funds".

I think the government in your country, don't wanna do it.
Reason:
Aid is channeled to farmers in the form of cash (rupees), that's better, it's just that the application for channeling funds must be changed to the highest security methods of hackers.

Your government knows, Crypto/Bitcoin is very sensitive from its price movements, when it goes up and down, who wants to take risks, of course there is nothing.

For that, any direct cash assistance that is carried out by the government must be accounted for in writing and in real time, for any expenditure of funds that want to be distributed to the recipient.

I think your government won't accept headache medicine, You know what I mean, dealing with the law.

Definitely it will be impossible to track the transactions and recover the money back but that is not my point. In the country like India where the large part of population is still very unclear about what Bitcoin is and don't feel safe to work with it. If Bitcoin will be used in such type of scams then how they will be able to trust it ? Even after the ban is lifted by supreme court, there is no strong government support for it. I have read somewhere that the government is still trying to take some measures in order to ban Crypto trading. Such scams will just add fuel to fire which will have a negative impact on the future of Bitcoin and  on the future of emerging crypto enthusiasts.

Also, with btc, even if there is transparency, it is hard to recover the funds because they can send it to untraceable addresses like using mixers. But with traditional method like fiat money, they still have the chance to recover it, just determine who are the culprits in this corruption.  And sue them, and they can return what was stolen.

This is an unfortunate thing to happen in a country when government is trying to ensure that the economy is bouncing back but now the corrupted individuals have find their ways to penetrate the system and divert the funds for their own personal use.

Now to the question about if it were to be in a situation of bitcoin while the amount cannot be recovered like the way they can from bank accounts but that would not have been needed in the first place because on the blockchain, everyone can see the source of the money and where its going to settle and whoever or whatever its being used for. In that case, on verifying the identity of the farmer and establishing their wallet addresses then it can go directly to their wallets and except the sender moves it to another account, we all know its not reversible which narrow down the culprits.

I regret that a good project like this one that intended to benefit the Agriculture sector that is hard hit by the blockade due to Covid has fallen into the hands of scammers.

Fortunately a part of the funds were recovered. For there to be transparency, you have to take care of the way the plans are created and take care of every detail, not place intermediaries. Only employing the right people for this  type of project and definitely blockchain and cryptocurrencies have proven to be safe and transparent.

First of all I don't think that in a country like India where the status of Cryptocurrencies is still unclear, Bitcoin transactions will be used to transfer funds for farmers and if in future the government decides to do it then it will be possible for them.The reason is the lack of knowledge about Bitcoin and Crypto wallets. Here many farmers are still not having a bank account and those who are having are struggling to use it. In these type of situations it will be very difficult for the government to teach them about the working of wallets.They will easily lose their private keys and the money they received.

If this fund distribution was sent via cryptocurrency, I think it will be more transparent and the Government could have mitigated such fraud at the soonest possible time, but I doubt it since the delivery mode of funds is not the real issue here but its the malicious acts of Government officials who have connived to make this fraud possible.

As with any Government financial transaction, checks and balances should be always implemented and audits should be done honestly by officials with utmost integrity. Also, any form of corruption should be dealt with harshly to discourage other people from doing the same thing all over again. Imho.

While the transactions weren't publicly available in this case because they are banking transactions, there's this centralization and the basic principles of how banks work that allowed to identify the people and accounts behind the scam and made it possible to retrieve some money. If it was all done in BTC, the transactions would all be there for anyone to see, but there would be no way to reverse them or to make the scammers give that money back. With no ID tied to Bitcoin wallets, I really don't think this could play out better than it did with banks. That much data just would not be available to the authorities if the money was sent in BTC.

It is not about what if this has been done through bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, but how people can be honest to distribute the funds to people who needed. No matter what currency will be used, if people still corrupt the funds, that will happen many times. I don't think the investigation can found the other funds that have been lost if the officials are not honest and transparent with everything that they found in their investigation. It is hard to manage people's funds because if the officials can not do the jobs, corruption will be there.

Theoretically, if Bitcoin was used, it could have been more transparent if they were required to report all the addresses and amounts used, but it would come with a risk of hacking or false hacking. Governments are pretty bad with cyber security, their servers get hacked quite often, now imagine if they used Bitcoin and their not only data, but their funds were also stolen. Another problem is that corrupt government officials could steal the coins and then claim it was a hack. In either scenario, there's zero chance of retrieving coins.

They can always track the transaction in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as the transactions is transparent in the public ledger, the problem is when the authorities didn't even know what the blockchain is and how to use it. How come could they tract transactions in that way? That is why some government have already hiring blockchain experts to help them with issues regarding these. If government isn't really concern about this new technology, lots and lots of people will just fall to frauds.

Prosecution would be easier since transactions are publicly displayed if this happened with bitcoin. Also, with a lot of chain analysis tools that the governments are developing all this time for events such as this, even if they are to employ the use of mixers on their schemes, those funds would still be nabbed ultimately. It may not be on the chain itself but rather on the exchanges in which they would be withdrawing the money.

It's sad that officials still have the heart and the guts to do crazy stuff like this as if they are the only ones having a hard time. It's disgusting. Similar thing is happening here in the Philippines, I think, wherein the department tasked to distribute said cash aid reported 93% of the funds were already distributed while the majority of the citizens are stating otherwise.

Well, the remedy is to look for the person who owns the wallet. If that fails, then I guess there is no other way to retrieve the lost funds. But then, since accountability should be practiced, the amount should still be returned in another manner. Those who were assigned to distribute the funds should be held responsible and asked to pay.

The problem, I suppose, is that the funds ended up in the hands of fake beneficiaries, right? If this is done in Bitcoin, there must be someone who is behind the wallets of those fake beneficiaries. That someone should be made to answer. Confiscation should follow.

If the fraud had happened with bitcoin payment, even that 32 crore would have lost. This money had been recovered because it was all done by the centralised banking channel and I hope the remaining amount will also be recovered slowly. In bitcoin, the entire 100 crores would have been lost because of the privacy feature of cryptocurrencies along with the power of bitcoin mixers. The recovery happened in fiat because of the KYC policy of the banks, at least some people were arrested.

In India, every new technology is seen as a threat, instead of seeing it as an opportunity. That's what is happening with bitcoin as well and the entire group of uneducated ministers are pulling up their socks to ban it through a law!

Corruption is the government is all around the globe, in my country (México) we used to make a joke... "You know why Mexico isn't the most corrupt country? because they pay to be in second place". And is normal for us to make a recapitulation when the elections come, to see how many steals the past governments. There are some crazy amounts.


If this happens with bitcoin, there is always the option to make a fork and send the transaction back until they steal the money, that's how you can recover them on cryptos, something similar happens to ETH in the DAO incident and a fork was the solution.

If such transactions were made with bitcoin, there is no possible way such funds can be recovered. Although such transactions will be transparent, the funds can't be recovered.
This is one of the key characteristics of bitcoin. Enjoying the decentralization of bitcoin means sometimes, when issues like this evolve, we just have to make do with the fact that such funds are gone.

I dont know when it comes to remedy once these scheme do happen then its most not likely for those money to be given back but at least there would be some compensation or aid

and also the difference of transactions that do happen via Fiat and Cryptocurrency is different. We know that cryptocurrency transactions are fully transparent but when the time comes when scam happens

then theres no turning back of those funds yet tx are irreversible even if you do know that suspects wallet address then its still useless.Unlike when dealing up with Fiat where someone can

really sue out and do make investigations on where those funds go and recovery might really be possible.

Blockchain would provide a ton of transparency to the inner workings of government, but that's also exactly what government doesn't want since they thrive off of corruption and inefficiency. So I wouldn't ever expect any such things any time soon. At best, a trendy micro nation might do something like that but even that I think is unlikely.

I don't know if the government will bring this issue under their law. But to be honest, it is very important to do this because if that happened then it would not be possible to recover the money very easily. In most Asian countries, Bitcoin and other online currencies have been declared illegal. Since the government is not legalizing all currencies, it is a great way to do crime. Even if the government needs it in the future, it is not certain whether cryptocurrency will be legalized.

If the government wanted, it would be possible to identify the culprits. Another big reason is that criminals leave their footprints when they commit crimes. It is difficult to say whether the government will legalize the cryptocurrency to prevent such crimes. But yes it is a good thing that the government can draw attention to the legitimacy of the cryptocurrency. I hope those who have committed this crime will be brought to justice.

This is what I thought. When some corrupt people manipulate and create rumors that there is hacking, it will benefit them, they will make the scenario as neat as possible so as not to be caught.
For the use of Bitcoin it will be more transparent because every transaction will be recorded on the blockchain so that the funds will be found where it ends. But it must be monitored together to avoid hacks that can occur.
I really hate it when some people manipulate money that is supposed to help the people to be more prosperous, it is a crime that cannot be forgiven.

It seems to me that this is not the best use of bitcoin. Maybe they'll think again.

Knowing fully well that bitcoin transactions are irreversible mean that, the funds can't be reverse as the government has done in this case(reversed the fiats). But be clear that, such a mistake can't happen with bitcoin because everyone of these farmers will have a unique wallet address which shows digital currency supremacy over the fiats. Though, bitcoin as an evolving technology can Still develope on this aspect which the world need it operate(reversible transactions made possible).

Agreed, with the use of cryptocurrencies there'll be more and more transparency. Each and every transaction getting recorded on the blockchain gives clear visibility on the end reach of the funds. In my opinion governments will easily bypass the blockchain and get into corruption, which is the prevailing situation around the world. In specific the sufferers are the poor ones.

People say that if bitcoin has been used it would have been more transparent, how?
You would just see thousands tx going from one address to thousands other, how would that help?
The fraud was no because of the way money was sent, the fraud was committed with false beneficiaries, bitcoin or cash or bank transfers the sums would have been still been paid and the same would have happened.


People have also a unique identification number and unique bank accounts, that didn't help at all.
You will achieve full control over it only if all the wallets and all the people are connected in a database that tracks all addresses used by a wallet, do you really want that?

As long as any official is allowed to create thousand of fake identities in one system he can do the same in another

.

No, they are not!

This isn't really a problem, you don't need every citizen to know how to verify Bitcoin transactions, that would be a task for activist and journalists. You don't need to hire any blockchain experts for that, anyone with basic understanding of Bitcoin could do that.


Yes, Bitcoin wouldn't eliminate all forms of fraud, it would only make some forms of fraud that rely on fake transactions harder to execute. But it's all just a theory anyway, no way any government in this world would adopt Bitcoin.

They say that cryptocurrency and decentralization hides things and keep them anonymous, but the way I see it, centralized organizations are the ones that are good at hiding things, banks can keep a money like this or any one of the government officials can steal the money and no one will be able to tell what’s happening.

But when it’s Blockchain and cryptocurrency like bitcoin, there is nothing to hide, because everything is widely open to the public and everyone can look into them and know where the money is heading. And also when things go wrong they can still trace it just like they have been doing for years now and find out the people behind it.

There would be a minor issue about the transparency because even though transactions would be stored and listed, if they will use bitcoin, the transaction made can’t be undone once confirmed. There could also be some sort of ghost accounts in which the corrupt and greedy politicians together with their underlings could produce, just to get more money.

In our country, there are many cases from graft and corruption wherein they will make an account using someone’s name to get the funds. They usually use the name of the dead for their wrongdoings. They could use this method too. Creating ghost accounts and sending cash aids to those are irreversible and can’t be traced, making it a great scapegoat, because their identities wouldn’t be at stake.

In addition, if bitcoin was used the time your government cash aid has been scammed, it would be most unlikely to get the money back because of bitcoin’s decentralized nature that values anonymity. And like what I said, once a transaction is confirmed, it can’t be taken back, as they could use many tools to make the address of the receiver untraceable. Unlike in banking wherein, they could freeze the account of the receiver and trace the transaction history.

The funds could have been distributed using bitcoin and could be traced. You won't be able to get them back but it sounds like they were regularly paying these people so you could blacklist the address and stop sending transactions to that person or even press charges if need be. Bitcoin would be great to use because we could trace where it is all being spent and the goverment would not be able to hide anything or corrupt goverment officials.

The government wants secret things and not exposure, this is the reason that many don't want to adopt blockchain so far. They want expose the public dealings but they don't want things in government houses to be known. For them it is better that way, to keep certain things secret except when it is important to bring it to public. But the modern day life with blockchain is about open administration.

Bitcoin obviously has some negative points as well. One of them, in certain situations, is irreversibility.

The only "remedy" would be properly analyzing the txs and backtracing the employees so that whoever did it has to serve the right punishment. Otherwise, what'd happen is a mirrored situation of the Mt Gox funds: they're just gone. We'd probably just have a few hundreds of articles talking shit about Bitcoin and that's it.

Anything comes with a cost, including decentralization. That goes from stuff like losing your seed to anything else a third party cannot solve. However, these costs and negative points of decentralization will never exceed those of centralization. I'd rather live with the risk of losing my money through my own mistakes than live with the feeling of slavery and control.

For a country like India which still do have certain issues with regards to Bitcoin usage and have still unclear stand with regards to Bitcoin usage and adaptation, it would be impossible to impose issuing financial aids that is meant to be distributed among farmers and knowing Indian people which do still patronize using cash rather than digital currencies like Bitcoin, they would just surely prefer having financial cash aid assistance rather than transacting it into Bitcoin which is still unsafe from scammers which once funds have been sent out, it cannot already be recovered. It was just sad that such good project of giving out financial assistance by the government for its people was not being missed out by those scammers and still took advantage of the situation for the sake of their own good. What must be made done on this is to manage properly the system intended for the distribution of the funds so that it would be assured to be get by the people and not by those scammers.