Bitcoin Forum

I am looking for arbitrage opportunities. Does anyone know if FEMA allows bitcoin purchase internationally? and/or any bank in India does forex remittance for bitcoin purchase?

I was in USA for few years and do have a personal USA bank account, a Circle.com ($300/week limit) account, a verified bitstamp.net account. Also, my friend in USA is willing to create GDAX account for high value bitcoin purchase. The only thing I need to figure out now is outward remittance from India to either my own USA bank account, or friend's USA bank account or Bitstamp account.

I have gone through Liberalised Remittance Scheme and also FEMA and seems payments for purchase of assets up to $250,000 per year are allowed for some categories. Not sure if bitcoin could fall in any of those categories. I have also went to my bank and their only response is we are verifying with our back-end team.

Is there anyone who has successfully bought bitcoins internationally or know how to properly do outward remittance from India?

Will be willing to give out some BTCs for concrete help with outward remittances.

Am posting a PM sent to me with permission from the author. This may explain some complexities. Have received many more cases like this over the past weeks.


This is very tough to do. I assume small amounts with trusted sources may be possible through alternatives like paypal, but very tough through conventional banks.

I am also interested to know about the SWIFT Transfer to international processors like Perfectmoney / OkPay / and Popular Bitcoin exchanges like Kraken / BTC-E , Never done before as Local Bank personals are horrific and i am scared that if i go to bank for a request to do this , they might think me as suspicious money Launderer , its really hard to make them understand about the situation . I once experienced when i withdraw from Solidtrustpay , Bank called me for the incoming wire transfer declaration and i did have to go through a hell lot questionnaires and documentation . Thank god that i had private bank and not a Govt. bank otherwise it could be more pain in the As* for me anyways i completed declaration successfully and then took an oath that i will never deal with Wire transfers again lol .. but i am also curious how all this happens .. specially for the outward remittance rules for an Indian .

Don't go for these opportunities as these will get you nothing based on the fee that you will pay ahead to banks and for foreign exchange.
I even tried some exchanges who used to allow Indians to buy Bitcoins there, but was shocked to see that even those exchanges have added India to the list of restricted countries, now that the price here is so high. The best exchange that I used to buy bitcoins at was Coinbase, and I cannot buy bitcoins there too.

Can anybody remitting money to India use bitcoins? If bitcoins are sent from abroad and then sold in Indian exchanges, are we violating any FEMA guidelines.
Plus remittances are tax free. Is this the case with bitcoins sent from abroad and then sold on Indian exchanges as well?

An article which doesn't go into the taxation/legality aspects..
https://cointelegraph.com/news/receiving-remittances-in-india-with-rupee-you-lose-with-bitcoin-you-profit

Good question .. really i also want to know this .. :/

You're NOT violating FEMA or any other law by encashing BTCs at Indian Exchanges yet. The same applies for mining bitcoins in India. As of now ordinary income tax applies for both cases.

+1

Previously I have bought some BTC from Bitstamp. I have a verified account and they accept international wire transfer. I used Net Banking facility of one of the private banks to do the wire transfer. The thing is, Bitstamp charges $15 flat fee for the transfer, so you are paying less commission if you're transferring big amount. The wire transfer can take 4-5 working days.

The only catch here is that doing a Net Banking wire transfer outside India to relatives/education/donation etc. is allowed but not allowed for commercial/trading purposes. For that you have to visit the physical branch of the bank, which will complicate the issue by them asking a lot of question.

Reading the above post it means that it will depend upon bank if they want to allow you and give permission for International transfer or not and also as you said for trading its not allowed then you may land in trouble as well.

If you visit their branch to do the transfer, they'll complicate the things.

You can use Net Banking, but as I said before, you have to specify a purpose for the transfer. So effectively you're giving a self-declaration that you're not doing this for commercial/trading purposes. Below is a screenshot from ICICI website, other banks have similar policies:

https://i.imgur.com/PHgHDNn.png

But what kind of purpose can one show for this?
If we are ever to throw out "bitcoins" from our mouth, chances are, we might straight away be given negative answers by all those dumb people who don't even know anything about bitcoins, but are there just to ramify everything in their own ways to stop us from transferring our money for this purpose.

Bitstamp now allows purchasing Bitcoins using Credit & Debit Cards for Indian users:

https://www.bitstamp.net/article/debit-cc-payments-bitcoin-now-extended-beyond-eu/

Yes but someone mentioned price over 8% + 2.5% exchange fees so not worth if that's true xD

After seeing the above replies one thing is sure that buying bitcoins through other exchanges is not good as they are complicated with law, that is why i am just doing the all free work like signature campaign, my skill work for bitcoin, hunting social bounty and other bounty and earning free altcoins and doing trading with that coins and earning bitcoins

Any one able to buy bitcoins using outward remittance ?

Its not worth a try. I have wired funds to okcoin , I can wire them now also , but your bank , the middle bank and okcoin will eat up a lot of fee ,which will eventually eat up your profit and a lot time consuming as well.

Yup, it'll be near to the price of the Bitcoin in the Indian exchanges, it's better to make some regular deals with a local dealer and then asking him/her for some discount while buying big amounts and although we are not violating any role FEMA will still keep an eye on the amounts you're transferring.

hi

I am from canada and mostly use directly peer to peer exchange localbitcoins for trade coins

better and easy to use

But still how did you do it? like which indian bank did you use and under which purpose of LRS it comes?

If you were able to do it, please share

Anyone remitting any cryptos to India can do so without FEMA in the back of their head. They are concerned with legal tenders or accepted currency. Bitcoin is not yet accepted as a legal tender so there is no rule yet about how much you can pour in here.
But once here, encashing it can become a chore since you have to either declare it as income (huge taxation) or donation (kinda illegal).

If you have someone buying your Bitchunk for cash, then you have nothing to worry about.

What purpose did you specufy to your bank for this wire transfer to okcoin?

It's easier to do corruption here than buying bits

Apply for International debit/credit card from your current account and forward it to your friend. Deposit money here and tell him to withdraw money there but their is limit on withdrawing cash (I don't know about limits), but if your friend can get POS machine from it's bank then he can directly transfer money from your account to his account with less fees.

If you want to know more in detail feel free to PM me.

i suggest you to not give a try , its worthless . you will loose money , not only the exchange website will take fee but your bank , middle bank ( which you are not aware of existed) , so you pay 35-50$ fee everywhere each .

i had loosed money wiring funds , as i said to okcoin.

you may try icici

It's cheaper to just buy Bitcoins from someone trustworthy here (On the forum) via PayPal.
Normally the premium is around 3-5% (Not including the Paypal fee), but it still beats wiring money to International exchanges.

You understand that 0.05% comes to $50 if you're sending $1000, right?
So if you're transferring $1000 (INR 66000), you're paying $50 (INR 3300) to exchange + INR 600 to bank as commission.

Not to mention that the currency conversion rates they use is generally Rs.1 higher than normal rates, so you might end up spending Rs.67 for each dollar instead of Rs.66

give it a try then :)

i told you there is middle bank which you never know existed which takes a large amount of fee (which means remittance happen via two banks you to your bank - your bank to intl bank - the intl bank to exchange ) . rest you know

What kind of taxation. If I am remitting money in my own NRE account , I dont pay any taxes on those amount. all the proceeds are tax free.
Intrested to know if I can buy BTC with USD/CAD and sell BTC in INR.
Then how will the tax play out. Do i pay tax in say canada or in India. There is no basis of paying in canada , because I never sold anything in CAD. And my INR deposited are technically remittance which are not taxed.

I tried my luck with nearly all the international exchanges out there and so far only cex.io lets me buy funds with my debit card! Though there's a good amount of fees they charge and price is higher than bitstamp/bitfinex it saves the hassle of wire transfers. Also found this on the hdfc website for wire transfers.https://imgur.com/Jsze06k

Wiring funds to a company is not possible from India. There are restrictions that applies for outward remittances that a person can do. You are limited to certain purposes. Only if you mention Okcoin or bitstamp as educational institution, you can complete the transfer. Doing so may lead to serious charges if found. You can't do continuous transfers to abroad because that will bring RBI and income tax dept's eye on your account. Better find some trust worthy person who sells btc or use local exchanges.

Its very simple, buy bitcoins in usd from localbitcoin from US sellers in cheap, transfer bitcoins to Indian exchange or sell in localbitcoin to indian buyers in INR, if you have money in usd this is the best way, but if you are trying to do whole round through INR then you may lose some money due to foreign exchange conversion.All the best :)

Anyone used Credit/Debit Cards on any international exchanges yet like Kraken / Poloneix / CEX ? I have successfully registered a tier 2 account with my card there, but have not purchased anything yet. With bitcoin prices crashed right now, it might be time to pull the trigger.

If anyone has purchased via their card on any international exchange, please tell me how much total cost did you have to incur (including all fees, charges)?

Kraken doesn't accept cc/dc. You can't even make a wire transfer from India. Poloniex is only a crypto to crypto exchange. No fiat currency deposits.
Cex is the only one i found willing to accept wire transfers and also cc/dc. Their prices are also usually 4-6% higher than all other exchanges. Combine this with a 3.5% fees on dc/cc funding, you're looking at a 8-10 % higher price. Makes it a bit unsettling and unattractive proposition. However, if that's the only way, i would recommend to buy from cex (as compared to the crook Indian exchanges , they're not even exchanges, just middlemen manipulating prices and earning fees), as you'll also  be getting a higher price when you sell there.
Tip- you can recover at least your cc/dc fees by some active trading.
If that sounds like too much hassle, bitbay is launching the biggest and best exchange in India pretty soon. Head over to bitbay.in and register.
Cheers.

Can someone please help me on following,

I have low Forex mark up credit card (almost NIL Forex Markup). I plan to buy Bitcoin in USD and Sell here in INR through India exchanges as arbitrage opportunity.

a) Does FEMA applies to this ? This will be trading ,so i will buy through credit card(CC payment in INR )>>>Bitcoin in USD>>>Zebpay ,Bitcoin Sold in INR >>>> Bank Account transfer to Credit Card again . and repeat process. Average margin comes around 2%(after all expenses).

b) As the transaction turnover itself will be high , will their be any issue with Income Tax  ? ( I am ok to pay tax).

 

Fema Per se is not  applicable. Though the amounts will be huge and you will be flagged up in the Indian Financial and tax department system as you will be dealing in forex. You may do so at your own risk. Bear in mind once they get a whiff of you , you will be harassed to no end until you cough up something. Btw, which card is offering such a low/nil markup?

There is a basic information about the position to bitcoin

Using SBI Elite card ( mark up 1.99% + taxes) almost equal to reward rate . Other is yes bank first CC markup is 1.75% +taxes ,reward rate is more than markup !

could you tell the eligibility criteria for these cards? Also how does rewards point cover the markup? For eg doesn't it work like - spend 100$ markup is 2$. And rewards are in some small points whose value is very low? Like a 100 points equal to 1$?

for sbi , reward rate is .50 Paise for 100 Rs of International transaction that is .5% (so out of 1.99% ) ...you get .5% as reward benefit.

For yes bank reward is 2% and Mark up is 1.75%...so ideally it is NO Mark up.

For my profit calculation of approx 2% or even more, above are excluded (and doesnt matter , if i get rewards it is Bonus :) )

Coming to eligibility,I dont think thier is specific income requirement for SBI Elite, for Yes Bank you need to have a credit card with another bank with at least 3 Lakhs Credit Limit or else you have to pay annual fees.(for me it is Life Time Free card)

I have no experience in exchange for international but i refer to you to exchange site etherdelta, yobit, coinexchange and their are many sites that you can exchange your eth to money.