Bitcoin Forum

Hello Bitcoiners,

I am not sure if we had this research quoted here or not but I just came across this research and found that it's worth sharing.

This research is conducted by Nishith Desai, Associates is India’s one of the international law firms. His firm  published a white paper which concludes that bitcoin is legal in India.

You can download research document from the link given below,

https://www.zebpay.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bitcoins.pdf

Another article by Vipul Kharbanda - http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/bitcoin-legal-regulation-india

According to this research, bitcoin is legal in India. What about your country? You can find it here in this document in chapter 4 (General position and view around the world).

Best
Dudeperfect

Only in a few countries it was illegal but now it is allowed all over the world, and as Russia has allowed it so now no one is there with major power to reject its allowance it their country, I think it is easily used all over the world not alone in india.

I am from Africa and bitcoin is used in all the countries there, though not officially recognized and legalized, it's gaining momentum day by day.

I cannot access the link but I know that it is legal in our country though I never see it advertise by the banks or by the governments.  But our bitcoin wallet here allows banks to deposit our cash.  Then we could convert our cash into bitcoins.  They even ask for our government issued ids so they can trace fraudulent acts.  They will even banned you if you engaged into gambling activities.

there's no restriction here in philippines as we see more progress happening because of our local exchanger who allowed us to pay our bills and buy a load for our prepaid sim card aside from that theres some more offer to use bitcoin.

Very informative article and well written that even a layman can understand.A
s mentioned in article itself
" Although Bitcoins can currently be
classified only as movable property and
more specifically as computer
software, this position is not tested in
a Court of law."
Unless there is clear ruling by court or law by legislature,we can not say bitcoin is legal.The article has inferred the conclusion based on various existing laws and classified bitcoin as movable property like a computer program which is debatable classification

yes it is a fact that bitcoin is using all most in all the countries but still not a single country has yest recognize it as legal currency, i think even in India it is not legal, because i have some friends from India and according to them bitcoin is not legal there.

I also do not know if it is legal in our country since there is no announcement or it is not used by major stores.  Although it is accepted to some banks who are listed on our bitcoin wallet and makes deposit through them.  So I think it is legal.  We are also asked to present some proofs like government ids to see if we are on legal age. 

i think in my country, there is no word said from government about bitcoin is legal or not, but i think government will said use bitcoin for your own responsibility, if you lose some money because of bitcoin, its your own risk, don't blame other people. i don't know how about other country, is it legal or not.

I am from Philippines, Bitcoin is not Legal nor Illegal. I have heard that our Government are trying to ban all online gambling. I wonder how will they be able to ban Bitcoin gambling sites. Anyways as long as our countrymen are enjoying the income in Bitcoin i don't against it.

I  hope it will not happen to our country that they will ban bitcoins to because we are using it in gambling if they are only the gambling are ban and bitcoins are not we can still use bitcoin anywhere you can be a anonymous also you should need a bitcoin mixer so that they can not trace you..

i dont know exactly if my country bitcoin is legal or not since my country is not covered on research document above, but the last update i heard about 2 years ago, our government only can regulate bitcoin as stock like gold, silver or others however using bitcoin as a currency is against the law, you can trade it but can't used it as a currency, not only bitcoin it's applied for other currency also

I think your friends have no knowledge on this matter.I am also an Indian and have been using bitcoin for over 2 years without any problem.I also withdraw my converted coins in Indian rupee to my bank

It's not legal in my country, come and get me ya cops. If ye can find me, that is, heheehe

Yes it is very much legal.  I buy my prepaid credit through bitcoin, pay my bills through it, and I can pay even my loan.  The bitcoin wallet that I have an account with just recently add stores where bitcoin can be accepted as payments.  How cool is that huh?!  ;D 

Bitcoin is not even considered a legal tender on Philippines, so first government would have to accept is as one, ff they want to ban bitcoin powered online casinos.
I don't think you can ban something without first properly define its legal status. 

The Philippines boards is one of the most active boards in this community. That might not be the right benchmark, but it does indicate that Bitcoin is popular to some extent with the Filipinos. It will be tough for the government to implement a ban.

What you are telling is totally wrong, In the both articles it is not clearly stated that Bitcoin is legal in India,

The first article is stating that they are law firm who are supporting bitcoin in india and they are working on it to get legalize but still it is not clearly declared any states on it.

first read the full article properly then give any statement.

I heard that it India government want cracking down bitcoin ? is that wrong ?

bitcoin is not legal in india, i personally visited india for so many time but i didint notice any thing about bitcoin, i also have some friend from india and they also told me that they are using bitcoin illegally in india and the government of india has not yet announced any statement about bitcoin,

Here in my country, i dont know. But some establishments are accepting bitcoin as a payment. So i guess it is legal in my country. But bitcoin popularity here is not that popular. I ask some friends about it but they didnt know bitcoin so i explained it to them.

Well, just because its not used or heard about, doesn't make it illegal. It is completely legal depending on how you use it. Check the article. The government usually doesn't comment about it, but as long as its not termed to be illegal, you are fine using it.

That is correct. Legality and Extent of Adoption are 2 different things.
If you see the India sub-forum, there is a vibrant community and lot of active exchanges.
Exchanges wouldn't be allowed to exist if Bitcoin was illegal.

in my country theres no restriction yet with bitcoin but the actual usage are limited there are certain website who's active like a middle man for bitcoin usage to pay bills or to book some trips but limited knowledge about this coin yet the good thing is our government is allowing the use of it.

Exactly, anyone who wants to look into this further, feel free to check out services like Coinsecure, UnoCoin and Zebpay.

It's apparently legal and taxed and everything in Canada but it's hard to find anyone that actually knows the rules and regulations. It's pretty much a Google here and a Google there,see what happens and continue on doing what you've always done haha.

as i have too many friends from India and according to them bitcoin is not legal in India, just like other countries of the world where government has not yet given any statement about bitcoin.

So you are have a contact in India who doesn't know about bitcoin or you are liar, Do you want me to throw some flyers about bitcoin whenever you visit india. "some friend from india" Give one of them so I'll verify.

Are you so dumb to listen to individuals rather companies operating like Coinsecure, UnoCoin, Zebpay, etc... Or are you suggesting all these companies illegal and running their business in subway. Which country are you from?

bitcoin is not banned in india but bitcoin still remains unregulated as we speak now but RBI has taken a interest in bitcoin and will be monitoring its progress,have you heard about BTCX india the first exchange in india closed its doors because the banks they were dealing forced them to do so.

My country is as the same as Thailand. Both of the country locating in South east Asia and both of them does not accept its people to use bitcoin. I live in Vietnam, whose government strictly ban bitcoin and every work related to bitcoin in the physical world is considered as illegal activities. So people only use bitcoin on the internet to buy or sell digital goods

As always, me country is not on the list. I know the situation here, though. Bitcoin is neither legal nor illegal. It is just not in the law, so nobody cares. And ther is no official way to exchange it with local currency, only via friends or unofficial meetings with people who would like to buy them.

I think in my country bitcoin is legal, because I don't understand about currency. I think bitcoin is same like other currency and Bitcoin illegal when be used to illegal activities and when be used to good activities is legal.   

i agree and i think the countries still not make any statement about legal or not until now, but few of the country has make the statement to moving with bitcoin technology and the government will inform about legal or not.

Over here, we don't really know whether its legal or illegal because the law is just silent on the matter all together so we just go with the illusion that its not illegal. Government of my country I believe they are already and still overwhelmed with the challenges we have currently so I don't see them looking the way of Bitcoin any time soon and hopefully by the time they are ready, I would have made a fortune out of the currency.

What you are telling is true that still Bitcoin status is not termed so it is not legal and illegal until you are not using bitcoin for any illegal activities if you are showing Bitcoin as short term investment and showing short term gains in tax law that is fine and you wont get problem. About company operating in India are also using the same term , if tomorrow government terms bitcoin as illegal then this all company have to show full details about the business and they may face a serious law problems

yet bitcoin is not support in here,,
It is illegal and ban in our coutry.
In Bangladesh...

Is your government representated by central bank give official announcements its be legal, but I think it's not happen for now, because if bitcoin accept it will replace legal currency.

I think this is time problem only, after india accepted I sure can effect to other countries especially Bangladesh the near neighbor from india. My country also still banned bitcoin, but the users always increased every time.

It seems lots of countries worldwide are silent on the legality of bitcoins, in the meantime their citizens are learning more about bitcoins. ;D

While Bitcoin  is not classified as illegal it is legal. But in my country (Bulgaria) still no specific legislation concerning Bitcoin, perhaps due to the low volumes of use and trading.

They are waiting big countries to make first move, that is my opinion. And probably lot of this countries will stay without any opinion or regulations until US, China, Russia, EU and couple other big countries make some law about it. Rest of the world will follow, and by the history probably there will be east and west conflict about this matter, where to put bitcoins in current system and how to legalize it, tax it. In my country there is no mentioning about bitcoin, or any law about it.

Over here in my country, to the best of my knowledge, there is no law covering Bitcoin because the whole thing is kind of new to us over here. And I dont see the legality coming anytime soon because we are currently being series of issues to now begin to devote resources to legalization or illegality of Bitcoin... And that is even good for us before the government look into that direction, I would have been more entrenched into it to a large extent...

I really don't care less whether or not if it is legal in my country. Regardless of what the powers that be want, I will do what the fuck I want. But it is legal in my country for now.

Maybe if you want to know the legality of bitcoin by country can visit this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country.
In my country, Indonesia, bitcoin not include legal tender, so if you use bitcoin should be cautious and if something happens the government will not be responsible. For those who use bitcoin might no action from the government, but if there is something undesirable government in Indonesia is not responsible. So consider bitcoin as a commodity and not as a legal tender.

This you are telling because their is no strict law against Bitcoin and its users , and at the end you told that it is legal in your country. If it was illegal then you wont be able to tell this way, if you are dealing in drugs or illegal products then you wont be telling like this. Be careful before expressing like a immature kid.

In India Bitcoin is still not got any legal or illegal status, so It is not clearly stated that Bitcoin is legal, Ya but if you are using Bitcoin and if you want to show in your legal or tax , then their are so many ways

I hope India is very big country but majority of the people are not using bitcoin may be. I hope when researched only few companies are exchanging bitcoins into fiat currency, whether they get permission from the government don't know. But what i hear from our Indian friend is every transaction is being made with bank transactions only.

Legal means at least Indian banks should advertise and make people to buy bitcoin publicly. Those research really good but government is not completely din't gave permissions may be.

In our country i dont know if its legal or illegal some are saying bitcoin here is illegal because it is not recommended by our government. They think bitcoin can be use for fraud or scams etc.

In my country there is not a an official stance taken by the government about the legality of bitcoin, since what is not forbidden is allowed then I suppose bitcoin is legal for the moment.

but in india , have scandal MMM , i dont know a bout lawy in india , if m.gandi still a live ,he will not agree

Sorry I could not understand what you are talking about, is that anything with multi level marketing? If yes the how is it related with bitcoin? And for your kind information let me tell you that M. Gandhi died 68 years ago but beyond that India is a democratic country and laws are decided in the houses of parliament. It has nothing to do with any single person.

I think the same thing is true with my country as to the legality of Bitcoin. The government has not yet made any pronouncement in relation to the use of Bitcoin and I am hoping that they would be more open and would just treat Bitcoin just like Paypal.

Since there is no explicit mention of Bitcoin in law book,it can be deemed as allowed and not illegal.
But the current huge demand of bitcoin in india can force government to make some regulations about bitcoin

Bitcoin isn't officially recognised in my country, but people use it every day without worries. And they don't have to worry about tax either.
But I strongly feel that when government officially recognises it, exchanges will have to pay a lot of money for whatever licence is attached to it.

Well who cares what M. Gandhi would agree , Only care at the moment what Mr. Modi will do for Cryptocurrency rise in India :)

i'm not indian people and in my country the government doesn't admit bitcoin as the currency and with the legality of bitcoin in india the government should be more concern for bitcoin development in that country because many people around the world has helped with bitcoin because they could able to earn money using their bitcoin and i think if the government more concern about bitcoin then indirectly will decreasing the unemployed people in india because currently i saw there are a lot of bitcoiners derived from india who able to earn money using their bitcoin

Lol yes Gandhi and anyone with that surname has become powerless.
I hope modi will regularise bitcoin because he wants to promote cashless economy

My country belongs to the European Union and for this reason has adopted corresponding European Directive under which the legal framework is very unclear. The prevailing view is that bitcoin  is not money in the narrow sense but a way of transaction and an agreement between two parties. In this light of view cannot considered as money.

In my country is still unclear, bitcoin is still the same as the commodities so that the Government does not set up specifically. In my opinion it is reasonable, because if legalised certainly had an impact which is good and bad. everyone will make money so to divert bitcoin avoid taxes.

I don't know if using bitcoins in our country is legal or illegal because we can cash in or cash out using different banks but our government says bitcoins are illegal but they are approving the different banks to operate to fund our wallets.

Bitcoin is not officially legal in any country. If it is legitimate, it will probably be some sanctions in the direction of law, maybe it will have to pay taxes. The main thing is to introduce bitcoin in the country.

i want to ask about legality of bitcoin in india.
bitcoin can be trade in real life? and can you use bitcoin as currency or bitcoin its just a gold.
because in some country bitcoin be regarded as "game currency" not real money, and other country be prohibited to use it.

if it is not illegal it's legal that is the concept, bitcoin is actually legal in many country and in europe is for sure legal because they approved it by exempting from vat, this alone make it legal

in those country it's not about legalize or not it's about regulation, and how each of them see bitcoin, for the USA is a property if i'm not mistaken for other can be seen as commodities

I hope completely it is not legal in India may be some people are starting using in India, i hear from many of my online friends that there are exchanges in India that directly deposit fiat currency into their bank account, when they place sell order in their exchange.

I think my country is not listed in it. perhaps because in my country, bitcoin is not something that is illegal, but also not something that legalized. perhaps it is not yet decided whether bitcoin would be legal or not, because bitcoin might still not popular in this country.

In my own counter here the legality of bitcoin is something that the discussion is not even ripe to the level that decisions can be taken to whether it will be legalised or not because currently the only news we heard from the relevant government agency is that which is likening bitcoin to a ponzi scheme in which promises riches quick and loses is more imminent due to the volatility of its price.

in my country there are many users bitcoin, but so far the government has not set a legal and tax laws in my country.

I see many article about bitcoin usage in India that their government are not still supporting bitcoin. Even the government of India has not given any permission for virtual currencies including bitcoin. It means they are not directly telling that we have banned bitcoin, but still people are using it with out any problem.

I just checked and it is legal in my country, lol like I didnt knew that already. Nice report but it is 22 months old,a lot of new laws and regulations since than...

Interesting. Didn't know it could be illegal in some countries.

It is illegal in countries such as Thailand and Iceland. However even more worrying is the uncertainty which exists in some of the other nations such as India and China. The Bitcoin users in these nations don't know whether they are doing anything illegal or not. The tax authorities have no knowledge of Bitcoin and they are unable to help.

Not only Thailand and Iceland many countries are afraid of using bitcoin because bitcoin is global currency where many transaction are being done daily. May be once government accepts bitcoin they feel that it will effect their economic growth.

If I sell 10 btc at today's rate in India and get paid in my bank account, my annual income will become taxable which  currently is not because I am a student.
Should I pay the tax and what should bitcoin sell be showed as in tax documents?

If you don't need that much money fast then the ideal solution for you would be selling BTC in small fragments.
For example: sell 0.5-1 BTC per month. Avoid selling whole 10 BTC at once, big transactions are monitored and will be taxed/investigated.
You can also use bank account of friends and family to mitigate taxing procedures. But it is bending the law, so be careful.

Even if he sells 0.5-1 BTC per month, the year transaction will be taxable and it is not wrong you can show in tax as short term profit and show the profit and pay the tax according to it, until you dont use bitcoin for illegal you should not be in problem.

it's always about if you want to pay the tax and be trouble free or you want to no pay them, because there are way with bitcoin to not pay tax easily, you can do cash face to face or use bitcoin to purchase stuff

people tend to forget that the fiscal agent do not move if the sum they need to seek for apply the possible tax evasion is too low, it costs them money to go after your tax evasion

Anything which you sell more than your country rules than you need to pay taxes on exchanging them into your local bank account. Quitely 10btc is really big amount when exchanging them into your fiat currency, so if you pay taxes to the government on the amount you exchanged. Governments will not send any notices to you.

I am from india and there is no restriction in using bitcoins at all .well government has strictly said that bitcoins should not be used for any illegal activities and bitcoins is very volatile in nature and to be very careful while investing them in it .give the right amount of taxes when exceeding ur limit of exchanging with them .

its good to see that bitcoin is legal in india and i am sure that there is many people that want to use bitcoin because of the benefits that bitcoin can give. and if the other country is read this and know this, i am sure that they will thinking to make bitcoin legal too like india. beside india, i think there are more country in asia that is legal to use and this is a good news for bitcoin community and i hope soon we can see offline store is available in many places.

bitcoin has not illegal in my country 

To anyone of the board members that was present during the recent "black money" crisis in India, did you see any spike in local peer to peer bitcoin transactions? I'm trying to discern exactly how people utilize bitcoin during capital flight/capital emergencies, and this particular scenario is a model example. Bitcoin isn't the best thing for something like this (gold is), but being able to move value onto the blockchain during this crisis had to be an advantage.

In my country ! The Indonesian government is still no topic for Bitcoin, there are some things that might yet be Topic Discussion here!

1. Including Bitcoin users in Indonesia has reached 50 percent!
2. No other country makes the rules about Bitcoin! and
3. Bitcoin is also not a real currency like the others

Even if interested, can not afford to make the argument to one another!

But to be a record In Indonesia there is no prohibition to use Bitcoin

And finally this year our central monitory authority the Central Bank of the Philippines(BSP) has release some guidelines about the bitcoin usage in our  country,this guidelines will cover virtual currency exchanges in the Philippines offering services or any activities that provide facility for conversion or exchanges, remittances, as stated above I will conclude that bitcoin in our country in partially legal with some restriction and limitation.

This is a good news, I'm sure will make the bitcoin's getting popular so that it affects the price. I hope my country and others also following India. Hope India also build Bitcoin ATM.

I am from philippines, The Philippine Central Bank recently approved new rules and regulations governing the operation of virtual currency exchanges. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) defines virtual currency (VC) as, “any type of digital unit that is used as a medium of exchange or a form of digitally stored value created by agreement within the community of VC users.”

The Bangko Sentral recognizes that Virtual Currency systems have “the potential to revolutionize” the delivery of financial services, “particularly for payments and remittance, in view of their ability to provide faster and more economical transfer of funds, both  domestic and international, and may further support financial inclusion.” However, the bank does not intend to endorse any VC, “such as bitcoin,” as a currency, “since it is neither issued or guaranteed by a central bank nor backed by any commodity.”

Would you consider the official declaration of the government is the only way just to say that virtual currency is legal? I think it is not yet official legal because it is not yet shown or heard on national TV and radio news. So people of a country is not yet aware about it.

I use Bitcoin mostly as i focus to this currency since a good amount of time
But in the same time i use banking services too.
Good  ;) ;) ;)

In my country, the legality of the bitcoin is in the gray zone the government doesn't say anything about that. There are rumors about the government are making laws for bitcoin but I don't know. They have a politic regarding of the possession of foreign currency, is "illegal" and you can be jailed for that.

I am from Russia and as I know bitcoin is not admited here as legal yet, and not admited as illigal as well. So for bitcoin it's double position here. As I found out from other comments in this thread only few countries admited bitcoin as legal currency. So I think after some time and here will be created some law to regulate bitcoin and only that can make it legal here.

its legal in my state :) :)

I'm from Bosnia and it is not illegal, No parameter on the use of bitcoins.

its illegal in my country (egypt)

For Example in Ukraine, authorities prefer not to notice the situation with criptocurrencies. Ukrainian National Bank had tried to equate bitcoin to money surrogate, to get taxes from it. But at the moment, i think they are not understand how to actually do that.

Over the last few years, India and Bitcoin have had a positive relationship, the decentralized currency has grown in popularity within the country. Now some news reports are reporting that the Indian government may be preparing to legalize and regulate bitcoin as a form of payment.

I know bitcoin is illegal in Bangladesh other county.I don't know what other countries are illegal.

in my country ROUMANIA also allowed

I am from indonesia in my country bitcoin is widely used here, but there is no legal or legal statement.