Bitcoin Forum

This is a tragic and a really, heart breaking news Ive read for this week. Imagine, Indian Government is planning to pass a law where people involve in cryptoinvestment will be sentence to a 10 year prison. Sound's really scary for those who will be caught.

https://i.postimg.cc/RZGq7Y9N/1480-a-HR0c-HM6-Ly9z-My5jb2lud-GVs-ZWdy-YXBo-Lm-Nvb-S9zd-G9y-YWdl-L3-Vwb-G9h-ZHM.png (https://postimg.cc/k26n9f2m)

Image source:https://cointelegraph.com/news/indias-proposed-bitcoin-ban-is-already-driving-a-crypto-exodus

This statement from the article above will bleed out crypto enthusiasts in India:

“The first large democracy” to ban crypto
As the Economic Times notes, the draft Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019 has proposed a 10-year prison sentence for anyone who "mines, generates, holds, sells, transfers, disposes of, issues or deals in cryptocurrencies.”

Though, this is still on deliberation but based on the report looks like they are damn serious about it. In my opinion, lots of people from India will be totally disappointed on how things will end up sooner for them especially those developer and projects that are into crypto investment.

I guess people from India will surely be totally pissed with this. Just hoping neighboring country will not follow this move of India Government.

It don't support the tourism, I think.

What, if somebody has a mobile with Mycelium and some BTC with it? Prison? For every tourist, who forget to delete the App?

Well! That's an old news! I don't know why Economic Times of India decided to post a story on that now, because the matter is currently under the trial of Supreme Court of India! Court hearing is still ongoing and the next hearing date is 25 September 2019. Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and India based crypto exchanges is defending the case against Reserve Bank of India in Supreme Court and nothing has been finalized yet. Stop creating panic!

Misleading title. The bill is in draft form and lawmakers haven't even reviewed it yet.


The "hold" and "transfer" aspects obviously won't be enforceable. Those would just be scare tactics to deter people from dealing with cryptocurrency at all. The government could only effectively target businesses (including P2P traders).

Still, if the law is passed I wouldn't have Mycelium on my phone if I traveled there. You never know!

It has been long time I am hearing that India will ban crypto-currency. But still now it doesn't happen. It's true there is huge amount of peoples involved with crypto-currency in India since it's a big country. But I don't think government will benefited if they decide to ban crypto-currency investment or whatever crypto related. India earning a good amount of TAX from crypto-currency users. So they will lose it, and people will start using crypto-currency on black market. So it will be another headache for Indian government. Due to anonymity its impossible to trace crypto users. So government will not able to prevent use crypto-currency.

Over all I don't think their decision will effect on whole crypto markets.

The title is misleading. The proposal is still in draft phase. It will undergo a long process before it will be official.

Aside from that, not all lawmakers or legislators surely agree to that.

Don't conclude things "for now".

Again? Didn't India already ban Bitcoin a few months ago? And then a few times in the past before that? "India bans crypto" is the new "China bans crypto" FUD. I personally don't care much about it, because India is a very small country when it comes to Bitcoin - numbers like node count and trading volumes are showing it. Even if India does ban Bitcoin, it's ecosystem won't be affected too much.

This is not a flash news, sorry. India this year has made it's U-turn against crypto. Although they have been debates on their parliament and a hot topic in 2017, everything went awry this year. So we are not surprised at all, it's just sad to, specially to those Indian who have been trading or involving themselves with Bitcoin and making good money out of it. It could face opposition in the parliament, but I think our Indian enthusiast should think ahead if ever this bill will passed, 10 years? I think that is too harsh.

So in case this law will be approved, but I doubt they will approved it, those tourism-related blockchain projects can't operate in that country.
There are several travel-related blockchain apps promoting tourism spots and other shops attached to it.
Tourism sector is actually a good business to explore with crypto because of the convenience & cost it might influence to the traveler.
But if this country will hinder such opportunity, they will be left behind by this great technology.

If its true, Its mad and totally bizarre law in my opinion. While most of the world are busy in developing blockchain projects this approach of Indian government is out this world. Forbidding citizen from using cryptocurrency is not new and we all understand that but to jail, really? I think they are treating crypto like a dangerous drugs.

Would it really be considered a democracy by anyone anymore if it does go through with its plans?

I mean, what this is doing is nothing different to censorship. They are trying to censor something decentralised that they see as some sort of risk to their monetary system (which really, it isn't, as it has been shown time and time again that fiat and BTC can coexist in parallel).

Their stance on crypto is already awful enough. Instead of trying to promote crypto adoption, they've essentially told banks to not accept any dealings with it whatsoever, wiping out the entire regulated crypto sector. It's draconian policymaking.

Also looked it up recently and it seems the ban on crypto are just petitions that are yet to be reviewed by India's Supreme court by the time this thread was made. The last hearing I was able to find was said to have happened on sept 25,2019. Sadly, I couldn't find anymore news about it.

And naturally, appeals happened since RBI originally said that they would ban bitcoin, and the situation isn't really that clear yet because decisions are made through long and arduous processes. I do hope the petition fails sincr this could be a possible setback for crypto

This may be an old post and a necrobump, but it does have some substance to it especially since there was actually fairly decent development that's been made on the case.

This is namely regarding the bill, which looks like is stuck in an eternal limbo with it being a couple months and a decision still not being reached.

This would actually be the first ban in crypto that would have consequences, previously bans didn't really do much since they wouldn't catch or punish anyone, but India would, which is very scary...

Previously India didn't ban the cryptos but banks restricted the transaction related to cryptos which forced the exchanges to shutdown or move their headquarters.Currently the reason why new bill haven't been passed yet is there is an arguement going on their court regarding the ban so the law of cryptos will be based on this judgement mostly.But as far as I know no favourable situation for cryptos there yet.

No, you never do know.  That's actually a frightening possibility.  What would happen if for some reason the police, or airport employees, or anyone connected with the gov't there had reason to look at your phone?  If you had some crypto on your phone as a traveller...you'd be facing 10 fucking years in jail?  That sounds ludicrous to me.  You would probably get less prison time if you had a gram of heroin on you.

That's good, hopefully when it comes out of limbo it'll be struck down.  India is a world away from where I'm at, but these sort of stories concern me.  I just can't wrap my head around the fact that some governments think cryptocurrency is so dangerous...to something...that the simple possession of it becomes criminal, with the potential for prison time if caught.  What in the world are they afraid of?

It's been more than two years and i have just heard that such laws and bills are coming which would ban BTC. There have been numerous articles regarding laws in India but nothing is conclusive until now. I think Govt. here just doesn't cares about cryptocurrencies as of now because there is no havoc by the opposition about bringing some legislation.

India has gone crazier these days, the country's leaders to be specific. It used to tread lightly on the matter, and they made studies about it, and then finally they decided that cryptocurrency is illegal. I don't understand why. Some people are saying that this law is only made under the influence of some powerful personalities and when these personalities' term in office will end, the country's stand on crypto will also change. But this is going to be harder from now on if the laws are already passed. There has to be an amendment made.

Even if such bill gets implemented people will continue to use bitcoin through one way or the other. In India the politicians are highly corrupt and very few are educated. If they've know about the possible ways of laundering through bitcoin soon they'll start corruption fund transfers through bitcoin. Within India the bills can be delayed for years. Now too there is more hearings taking place for months. When the judge himself satisfied he'll give the conclusion on the bill. Until then there is nothing to fear of cryptocurrency ban in India.

Does anyone know how this went?  We all know that all courts will be against any banning of any kind of cryptocurrencies.  But it will be up to governments to follow those rulings or ignore them. In countries with more autocratic governments will be more ignorance and cryptocurreinces will get banned until government will change.  I believe India is close to that. More autocratic that many others.

I wonder how such law will be enforced if indeed it is true. Are phones and other internet devices going to be searched? Or will they monitor internet traffic for cryptocurrency transactions? I read months ago that people still use cryptocurrencies in China despite government stance on them. If things can be that difficult for Chinese government to handle, wonder how India will cope with its little internet censorship.

Banning bitcoin will never work, look at china for example, they have banned ICO for example but people figured out another way and they are still doing it, it is just a method where everyone thinks they can get rich and making 1 dollar into 100 dollars is life changing in some parts of the world.

Hence, if you want to get power out of peoples hands bitcoin is not the way, sure try to ban bitcoin related banks and bitcoin related companies and whatever you find relating to bitcoin but if you want to ban bitcoin itself you will most certainly fail. You have to cut down the internet to everyone in the whole nation to stop bitcoin, it is p2p and will always live everywhere around the world.

Nations do not realize the power of decentralized currency because it has no central point to attack and that helps us.

Ofcourse. Those countries that baned ICOs already have a way to crowdfund for a projects. And they want people use those ways and not ICO. Why? Because they already have all set to protect investors. With ICOs investors are not protected at all.

Anyway this case will reduce the overall demand for crypto coins (especially new ones) among the billionth population of India. Crypto idea is not based on the large whales with their deep wallets... Only usual people who can spread the idea of independent money among their friends and relatives may bring all comunity to the new level in 2020.

Maybe Bitcoin in india has more use into the criminal world which is sad to hear but is not the dollar or rupee used in the same way ? I think it is. I remember China saying this so many times to scare investors and Russia did the same so many times but in the end they found another way to trade cryptos and participate into ICO's so I think it will be the same case with India so lets wait to see what will happen as it seems they simply don't like Bitcoin and those who are using it ...

This is also the country that practically banned people from keeping money under their pillows so I wouldn't be surprised.  ;D

The thing is, would they be able to really run after crypto users. How would they find out who have stashed what somewhere? They can't even catch their scammer cybercriminals that it take white hats from abroad to expose those and report to police. This is too huge for them. Better to just tax exchanges and EARN money on the side rather than SPEND money enforcing the ban.

I think every country has a criminal record with bitcoin. Moreover even if this is the case with India there aren't any public records of such things and almost zero investigations going around due to this. I think most of the police personnel won't even know what is bitcoin in countries like India and China because these things haven't been exposed to much of the population there. But I think India being part of popular groups like G-20 banning crypto is not fully their call other countries if decide to keep it legal India may even think the same.

I wouldn't disagree to your view but after the demonitization, India's economy is showing signs of slowdown. The current religious government has failed to provide job opportunities to the youth and also creating a big mess in the name of NRC. If you are from the same country, you would know what I mean by that. around 1.9 million people from a single state are declared foreigner and put behind the bar. The government is deliberately targeting the religious minorities and riots are erupting everywhere!

I personally don't have much faith from this current government about the cryptos. They are conservative by nature and acts on the radical faith on religion. It's true that government wouldn't be able to catch all even if the criminalize the cryptos in India. But Indian youth are now looking to settle abroad in countries like Canada and Australia! Until and unless the current government changes, there's literally no hope for India!   

yep china can't stop their people from buying crypto, they are probably the most advance when it comes to technology and very demanding that laws be applied but how are they catching up now when it comes to crypto. thier citizen are even more aware of it and even become developers. with more people in india wanting to earn online by means of whatever comes, BTC is going to be one of the choice. no one can stop a man from getting his dream.  

It would either be of the two effects that might happen of this crypto-ban would be passed: (1) People would be scared of the government, selling all their coins and putting it somewhere else away from crypto, or (2) people would still transact cryptocurrencies, but in a hidden way, like how black market works, but digitally. If no internet ban would happen, then transaction of crypto is quite impossible to censor since there are VPNs people of India can use to still connect to their exchanges.

The current Indian government is really pissing off all the way, not only they are interfering with the virtual world but also they are making some noise with its neighbor country, How they could do that I don't think so, they are going to create a crisis among their territory in the religious aspect, The current government is working only for their religious aspect, if they will try also in the cryptocurrency platform, it wouldn't be a surprising issue because they already did so many disputed things, whatever the case is, if you are from India then you can easily continue working with this platform, look China is more developed on the technical aspect but they failed to prevent their people to work in the cryptocurrency platform. So don't worry.

if the government of India is serious about regulating the circulation and use of cryptocurrency I am very sorry,
inevitably users from India must stop using it if they do not want go to prison. I think this policy is unfair because it will close people livelihoods.
in fact this prohibition still has a solution without having to prohibit and incorporate this prohibition into law if the decision makers want to take it wisely.

After in 2018 the Indian government restricted and closed access to payments using cryptocurrency, now the Indian government will officially ban the use of cryptocurrency. Through its bill regulates the prohibition of mining, producing, holding, selling, dealing, issuing, transferring, disposing or using cryptocurrency in India.

One of the reasons the Indian government proposed a ban on the use of cryptocurrency besides digital rupee was to control India's economic, political and security stability. Although democracy has brought economic progress in India before, other factors such as high population growth rates, low GDP and the shifting of Indian habits from frugal living to materialistic brought moral degradation as well as domestic economic and political instability.

Besides that India is also in a situation of a dispute with Pakistan over the struggle for Kashmir. Both Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons, so India will be very sensitive and responsive in seeing potential threats to its sovereignty. India chose to close itself to the cryptocurrency whose losses could be calculated rather than opening up to the cryptocurrency but were cheated by the practice of money laundering by domestic corruptors as well as funding for terrorism and illegal arms trade.

Indeed the cryptocurrency prohibition policy in India will cause a lot of losses on the economic side, especially crypto businesses but it is still not too dangerous compared to security instability and sovereignty.

nop its not really serious its all just an act. the indians will just use VPN if they are serious. they can already browse safely and trading BTC with vpn, they are not going anywhere even if its banned. but i can only expect more indian users are going to currency exchange section of the forum to trade BTC to paypal. there is going to be more paypal scam because of this lol

It's true, when police and law enforcement aren't really knowledgeable about crypto-currencies, it's hard to combat crypto-based crimes (which is still popular, even though fiat currencies are more used for crimes).

India's taken a very strong view towards this, and basically scare of people with their 10 year sentences, but the problem is, that number isn't really scary for criminals, it's more scary for the regular crypto-investor who doesn't do crime with their crypto-currencies.

Well, 10 years in prison just because of single thing we do about cryptocurrency?
what a kind of democracy,if government take action without voting etc.
according to that source :
Sidharth Sogani — CEO of crypto and blockchain research firm Crebaco Global Inc —- has forecast that India will lose around $12.9 billion worth of market if cryptocurrency is eventually banned in the country.
they will lose a lot of money, also they lose of new thing of technology. for me, its just stupid action.
I just hope it's not the final decision.

Cryptocurrencies have gone through many issues in India such as the scams of 2013.The silk road, which was a darknet market for malicious individuals to smuggle drugs became very successful, and malicious geeks managed to trick a lot of innocent people into wrongly investing their hard-earned money. India, however, is the first known country to regulate cryptocurrency. However, even with the regulations, it is still believed that India’s economic and political conditions make it the perfect fit for cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin.

I believe this movement is called "Hindutva". Sad that this also have to affect monetary policies. (Them going after non-Hindus is kinda expected.) I agree that crypto ain't seeing any development under this administration but I still believe that those youth that do decide to stay would try to use crypto. India is currently in no way as bad as Venezuela and some people there still somehow manage to use bitcoin despite the blackouts.

The percentage of regular people who are using cryptocurrency in India is far more than the criminals, so it is more of a concern to me because this will really have very negative impact on the market except maybe people that are very knowledgeable about the use of vpn to actually block their cryptocurrency sites from government seeing it because the first point that the government will use is to actually block sites that is related to cryptocurrency.

But, people can still generally adopt and use bitcoin without government knowing who was actually the one responsible for the transaction, but people must still have deep knowledge of this first, I mean that they have to even be sure that bitcoin can give them the privacy that they need for them to ignore government warning.

Governments like India are really cutting off their own nose to spite their own face. There are a lot more advantages to allowing Bitcoin, than actually banning it. India have a lot of unemployed and poor people and a massive informal workforce that would significantly benefit from Bitcoin's ability to allow these people to do cheap micro payments.

The Indian government is obsessed with protecting their own reserve currency and hiding their corrupt activities behind fiat currencies and corrupt financial institutions. <Banks> and for that reason, Bitcoin is public enemy number one!  >:( >:( >:(

There is nothing to be scared unless and until you are doing something illegal with the coins you hold and no one will be taking you to court unless you reveal that you are trading with bitcoin. I am not in India to fear the law even if they ban bitcoin as i do not have any hope with the ruling party who does not have the vision to make India better and all they do i to advertise stupid nonsense. I heard this news a long time back but there is no logic unless and until they book you for terrorist funding and so on.

You can't really "ban" bitcoin in any country ever, you can make it illegal but that doesn't stop people from using it. Ban means you ban something and it can't be done, for example if you get banned from a twitch chat that means you can't write anything there, but if something is illegal that means you can still do it but you are going against the law while doing it. That is why India could make it illegal but can't ban it.

Indians would still continue using it the way they can, they could use international airport laws where they can cash out their money and would be in international law so it wouldn't matter, they could just drive to another country for a while and come back quickly and do their business there, use any bank that is foreign and many other options.

It makes me wonder too brother, with the population that they have and the highly and smart intelligent guys that are in India, I really wonder how they really intend to achieve this, they will have to put a whole lot of young ones in the prison for this, because one of the country that is keeping cryptocurrency very active is Indian citizens, their engagement in cryptocurrency has been really amazing that the cryptocurrency world can really not do without them and they have also made so much input into the development of the system.

It will be very much difficult to actually implement this policy if the government really knows what they are doing, and they need to be careful in making a decision that they might regret in the future when cryptocurrency eventually becomes worldly recognized.