Bitcoin Forum

The price of Bitcoin (as I'm posting this) is $712, but some guy (will not use names) on Twitter tweeted that BTC is traded @ $100+ over the actual price on Indian exchanges. I haven't checked the Indian market recently, but currently Unocoin buys Bitcoin @ 55,800 INR ($824) and BTCXIndia buys it at 55,500 INR ($812). Can someone tell me why is that difference?

Cheers,
Spartak

The reason is always the same. Supply can't catch up with demand. There are not enough sellers. It's interesting that the same phenomenon is happening to gold. Gold is smuggled into India and customs officials are bribed along the way to let it in. With a recent attack on paper cash there, the number of people who want to buy hard cold metal is higher than of those who want to sell it.

I don't understand what's keeping the price of Bitcoin so high in India. What's stopping the Indians from purchasing Bitcoin at normal prices on other foreign exchanges avoiding the local sellers charging excessive amounts? It's not so difficult to use a credit or debit card online, is it?

Are you from India? Some people said that it has nothing to do with the paper cash and that its not new (it was always like that). Anyone else?

no it hasn't always been like that
most likely cause is the recent 500 and 1000 notes "exchange"- read 3 days notice expropriation
so now people grew vary of the goverment issued bonds and notes and vote for bitcoins with their money
simple as that... if your currency is taking a nose dive or your goverment put restrictions on its use or threaten its safekeeping
you choose different ways to store your wealth,bitcoins is just happened to be the answer

I guess the bitcoin community there is still quite isolated with only limited source. Dun worry, this happens when people are eager to get into bitcoin and willing to pay the premium... I did that in the past and bought the most expensive 1 BTC @ about USD1300...

wow,the price is so high in India, other country people can open a account in it's exchang?I want to create a account in India!

Very interesting opinion and looks like it is logically. I also noticed that on different exchangers the price for bitcoin is different, so it depends from the demand to bitcoin in this current site? Or every site decide itself by which price to sell and buy bitcoins and other crypto currencies?

I dont  know  whats  the  reason   behind  on this  hence  i dont  live  in india but   things comes to  my mind.  That  person  do take advantage  on  his  fellow indian  because   ht already  knew that he could  able to buy bitcoin  on latest price and sell it  to  people  with profits. Well its a good  profit business. Demands are  there  but  some people dont have knowledge  mostly  on  how gonna  purchase. Thats  just my opinion. Dont know if  im wrong  or right.

It means there is no good balance in liquidity on that exchange. Big reason for poor balance being they are much less confident about Indian rupee, Venezuelan bolivar, etc. than about Bitcoin: buyers > sellers, demand > supply.

Arbitrageurs do try to narrow down spreads between these outlier exchanges and exchanges that are well connected to USD/EUR liquidity channels, but they are successful only to some extent. Strengthening perception of local fiat value erosion causes confidence about said fiat to plummet and we can observe this in price action on local exchanges. localbitcoins.com is another good example, prices at which deals are struck there are often higher than international USD/EUR markets.

That's what I do, it really not that much of a problem especially is you just use direct bank transfer on localbitcoins there is only some service tax. As far as for OP i dont know which exchange you used to get the information, the prices for btc in usd and inr are almost same.

Geez,

The reason to create this thread is to ask what exactly is the case according to the natives, not to discuss and guess what may be the situation. Can we stick to the subject, please?

I did referred 2 exchanges!

Here's a screenshot from last night:

https://i.imgur.com/tpCD4vQ.jpg

54,610 INR  = $804, 55,722 INR = $821

Need to explain more?

yeah actually, all the exchanges seem to have higher prices. Preev and XE and others seem to show right price, i never really gave attention to it, now i have the same question as you ._.

Previously the difference was not so large. The Indian exchanges were always giving bad rates but nev this bad.

Regarding the difference and the reason they are still sustaining is the ban on the paper cash, people are finding ways to dump their non taxed money into something and cryptocurrency is the best choice.

Another point to note is India has still not set its feet into cryptocurrencies, so the actualy USE ( ie transactions ) are very few, I do not know of any indian Shop/seller that accepts Bitcoin. So basically the major use of Bitcoin, Indians have at the moment is money laundering !!

It's no surprise to see that high premiums are paid in India for Bitcoin. You will observe a similar effect in other countries, whose fiat currency is subject to high inflation. Safe haven investments are in high demand in these countries. Remember that Indian investors paid significant premiums for gold as well. The recent restrictions for fiat currency use and the capital controls already in place only instill (perfectly reasonable) fear of expropriation and therefore increase the demand for safe havens.

Coupled with the high demand for safe haven investments comes a very low demand for Indian Rupees. The currency is of low international importance. Demand for Indian Rupees comes mainly from tourists. That greatly limits the supply of Bitcoin on Indian Bitcoin exchanges, considering that India hosts no major mining operations.

ya.ya.yo!

Since when dumping justifies a much higher (than usual) price?

Situation is same here in Nepal, there are not much bitcoin sellers and i am easily selling my bitcoins 10% over the market rate. There are not much bitcoin holders here right now but demand is high and many have started learning crypto trading and also no any official bitcoin exchanger is here.

I think india also have same situation as well as their rules regarding foreign currency is really tight just like here due to which even those exchange platform can't just buy bitcoin out of the country to meet the huge demand.

there are very few people who wanna sell their bitcoins rather than the many people who wannna buy those bitcoins .so thats y people go for companies that have higher payment .but to keep it in mind that these payments take quite a bit of transaction fee ..but u can try zebpay its better .i guess ..kudoos :)

First of all market's rates will not be same, it'll be depends on the market's demand and supply. And also there's a big problem in India that Indian government banned 500 and 1000 rupees notes to ban black money. So, some black money holders who're using bitcoin will try to convert their fiat into BTC, so the exchange's rate might be high. And there have strict restriction on depositing money on bank and have to pay more tax than before!

Let say a coin a listed in poloniex and bittrex, it will have some difference in price, why is that? demand and supply is the answer. And I am an Indian staying in Kerala. I have to say that Indian exchanges and sites like unocoin and zebpay charges more as than other international sites.

I would prefer buying from unocoin or zebpay as they are set up in India and I can get a refund if things go wrong for some reasons. I may able to do so in any other sites which are based abroad, but I trust these Indian sites more. I believe Zebpay and Unocoin are registered in India and they do fall under the Indian jurisdiction which makes any Indian buyer or seller of bitcoins confident.

   

i think these are just the false news, as i know so many people from India, even some are my close friends ans they often discuss with me about bitcoin but they never mentioned me such thins  therefore to me it may not be true.

And as we speak (and wasting our time as I didn't saw a single satisfying answer), India is buying Bitcoin @ $890: https://twitter.com/bulgar1an/status/799208813769453568

THE question is WHY?

Isn't that BUY for when a person buys from the local exchange?
I do not see the rates the local exchanges are paying for when a person sell their bitcoin to the exchange.
It's usually significantly lower when selling(converting to fiat) to the exchange.

An example from my local exchange:
Php 37,218 = $750.068 = 1 BTC = When I buy from the exchange
Php 36,057 = $726.67   = 1 BTC = When I sell to the exchange

I cannot find the rates these local exchanges in India are paying when one wants to sell BTC.

So, wouldn't the reason for the high price when "Buying" from the exchange be the recent rupee crisis?
Like others have suggested, the exchanges are probably taking advantage of the demand since a lot are wanting to launder their "black money", hence the very high price for buying.

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So, the BUY that we see there is when a person buys from them. It's not a p2p. You buy and sell directly to the exchange. Dumping Rupees = Very high "BUY" rate for BTC

Allow me to try again:

1. People who have black money wants to convert into white some how in the wake of demonitization and they are rushing to buy the "digital gold".

2. A lot of people started using digital payment apps such as paytm, statistics have showsn that transactions in the past week have risen to Rs 20,000,000  from Rs 300,000 of this app. This shows that Indians will soon adopt bitcoin in the coming months. Seeing this the old bitcoin users and traders are setting up the price in premium. The global scenario also points to bitcoin price appreciation at any moment