Bitcoin Forum

Open question:

Why has Bitcoin so far gotten zero traction in India?

Some thoughts...
---
- India has more programmers/computer people than the rest of the world combined.
- People in India love tangible assets (gold/silver)
- The Rupee is crashing and the gold price has just hit an all time high in Rupees.
- > 10⁸ people in India have no bank account or otherwise access to financial services.
- Millions of Indians live outside India and send money to/from relatives in India.
- Unlike China, India has no "great firewall".

---

Last week, many Bitcoiners got very excited that the turnover on the Chinese Bitcoin exchange spiked for a few days. Why? Because there are a lot of potential Bitcoiners in China, of course.
But India does not even have a Bitcoin exchange of its own! Why not?

I have seen some India investors looking at Bitcoin...Its only a matter of time.

There is a big Bitcoin Casino I think somewhere in Marakesh. ;)
http://www.luckycoin.in/

give them time.

today:

India may be the first fallen BRIC angel: S&P

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/11/idINWLA845120120611

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/india-investment-grade-rating-standard-poors/1/185301.html

...

Money transmission laws are very strict in India.
I think it would be difficult to setup a bank account and explain what you where doing without them saying no.

And one more reason ..

Many (especially in the tech sector) use the English language -- so their access to the software, websites, media, etc is not impeded by a language barrier.


#1 rank, $55 billion for 2010 (estimate) as stated here:
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance#Top_recipient_countries



TradeHill did have a BTC/INR market but the bid/ask spreads were generally pretty wide.
 - http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/thINR#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

Bitcoin-Central.net did offer a BTC/INR exchange as well, but they discontinued it -- not sure if it was because of volume being too low or if it had to do with other reasons.

Paxum accommodates wires to India, and they support account-to-account transfers.  There are quite a few bitcoiners who still have a Paxum account even though Paxum cut off their relationship with Bitcoin exchanges.  It shouldn't be terribly difficult to find someone who would accept bitcoins for a transfer to another Paxum user (from India who then withdraws to their bank in India).

I would expect that at some point the hundi providers (same concept as hawalders, ... or like an unregulated Western Union) will discover Bitcoin and begin to consider it.


More reading on the subjet:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85174.msg939331#msg939331
 - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/3651/153
 - http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/Might-Bitcoin-have-a-success-as-a-hawala-system

Look for Coinapult's SMS Wallet, currently only available in the U.S. and Canada, to be offered in India, or globally even.  That enables Bitcoin transactions for person-to-person trading like how M-Pesa is used in Kenya, with nothing more than a feature phone with SMS text messaging service.
 - http://coinapult.com/sms-wallet

WalletBit just created a WAP (WML) wallet for feature phones that have WAP data connectivity:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85684.0

Here's a Twitter feed on the topic (India):
 - http://twitter.com/bitcoindia

I doubt that this is the only issue. If it were we would have more people from India on these forums as well.
How many people from India are on IRC? I guess a service like bitcoinary.com would also catch on quick in countries with legal hassels?

Well, inbound remittances ended up being $58 billion for 2010.
$64 billion in 2011
and $70 billion expected for 2012.



 - http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report_rbi-eases-rules-for-inward-remittances-further_1700032

Bitcoin sucks for remittance. Yes the tx fee from one Bitcoin address to another is super low, but you have to add the fees for exchanging fiat into bitcoins and bitcoins into fiat which add up and end up the same or more than traditional wire transfers.

A good example of this is presented in this thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=76395.0

In a few years that will either no longer be true, or bitcoin will be dead.  Exchange fees will come down as the demand for exchange comes down.  The more bitcoin accepting businesses, the sooner this can happen.

or Bitcoin will be alive and well and simply not used for remittance from one fiat currency to another?

What will it be used for?  If it is used to buy and sell things than it won't have to touch fiat currencies.  It is still a remittance regardless of the involvement of fiat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance#Top_recipient_countries

Sometimes people suggest if there is high inflation, just buy bitcoin. This would not work as you can only buy bitcoins in countries where there are bitcoins. remittance is the *only* way to get bitcoins to countries with high inflation.

Remittance aside, why don't we hear about mining in India? Plenty of computers and geeks.
And what about Indians (programmers, graphics designers, etc.) working for bitcoin? I don't see it?

Like it or not, the world is run by the media. It's possible that there just hasn't been much news about Bitcoin in Indian media. This combined with the regulation could be why Bitcoin is not used there yet.

Are there no Western Union or Moneygram locations which can be used to send a monet transfer?   Here's an exchange that accepts Western Union money transfer (converted to Canadian Dollars / CAD first):
 - http://www.canadianbitcoins.com/westernunion.php

And here's some digital currency exchanges where Liberty Reserve can be purchased.  Liberty Reserve can then be used to purchase Bitcoins.
[cautioin though, LR exchanges are notorious for hidden fees, delays, etc.]
 - http://lrbuysell.com
 - http://www.libertyreserveindia.in

Here are ones that takes cash deposit at ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, and AXIS Bank or payment using Payza (formerly AlertPay) for instance:
 - http://ashishhundekar.com/buy
 - http://www.entelnova.com/indexhome.htm


Instead of an intermediary, bitcoins could be earned from trade when exporting.  Including exporting labor.

Here's a talk by Michael Levinson, VP of Product, oDesk, which has a lot of freelancers from developing nations.  He describes the challenges to (and importance of) paying those contract workers.  Notice that the bitcoin topic just keeps coming up over and over by those in the audience.
 - http://vimeo.com/29287295

Also, nothing is stopping a person in India from sending funds using PayPal to a friend in San Francisco and asking that friend to go down to 7-11 and load the funds using BitInstant.  If there are tourists, presumably the tourists will be looking to buy rupees, and might be informed ahead of time that bitcoins traded for rupees once at the hotel are how to get the best exchange rate.  There's nothing stopping a person in India from adding listings to http://BitMit.net, or http://CoinDL.com, for instance, to try to earn bitcoins.  

And "remittance" doesn't have to work the way Western Union works.  With Western Union (or moneygram, or PayPal, or whatever), there is a per-transaction cost so the recipient wants to (or must) cash out everything at one time.  With Bitcoin, cashing out can be done as it is needed.  Or perhaps there are goods and services that those bitcoins would buy.  Like Airtel and TATA wireless:
 - http://www.bitcoinwireless.com (coming soon)  
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84348.0

Or web hosting, or VPN services, etc.
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade



One of the first mining operations on GLBSE (April, 2011) was DISHWARA:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5750.msg363437#msg363437
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5750.msg628733#msg628733

I've been thinking about this as well. I know someone with ties to india that's lived in the UK all his life. He has a bank account in India. He would be able to act as a market maker and accept Rupees into his Indian bank account and payout Bitcoins minus a commission.

There must be a lot of people in this situation and it wouldn't be long before locals saw the profit potential and started to make a market for themselves. Once you have market makers in a country workers can start accepting Bitcoins knowing that they can convert them to Rupees when needed.

Sound plausible ?

I regularly do work for a guy in India.  When I suggested he pay in Bitcoin, this was his response:

So it seems Bitcoin doesn't have a very good reputation in his region, and they are hard to acquire. He would rather pay me more to cover Paypal fees than spend the time to figure it out.  Of course, this is just one guy, but maybe it gives an idea of the issues Indians face getting bootstrapped in the Bitcoin economy.

Well, there's the saying that you can recognize a pioneer by the arrows in his back.  There has never been a decentralized digital currency before, so nobody knows what to make of it.  There's nothing wrong with taking a conservative approach with something new -- that would describe the majority of the population.

Fortunately, those reading this thread don't fall under that category.

We are the part of the population that sees the potential.  We see the day that we don't need to give PayPal its pound of flesh.  We know that some day this will pay off where sending a remittance to family using bitcoins is a better alternative to sending fiat in one country and having it arrive as a different fiat currency in another.  We know that some day we'll be sending bitcoins, and those bitcoins will be of value to the recipient and thus spent or saved, but not exchanged into fiat.

There's just this sizable gap between where we are today and how we envision the future.  But we know how to get there.  Notme's inquiry is a perfect example of how it starts.  Then some day this guy will have been given the same request over a half dozen times, and then he might not be so quick to dismiss it.

Here's a great article from Transaction World:


I had just posted a similar article describing how in Nigeria, the Paga mobile network has a network of 550 agents that accept cash and then load the funds into the subscriber's mobile wallet.  That then allows payment for prepaid services, such as cell phone and other prepaid services.  The link to the article is in here:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63687.msg958729#msg958729

And continuing on the Transaction World article, it appears the same reliance on cash occurs in India:


 - http://www.transactionworld.net/articles/2012/april/money_guy.asp

Two Bitcoin articles that were in the media in India:

 - http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/wire-news/factbox-what-is-bitcoin-currency-or-con_687590.html - 2012-04-2
 - http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/choicerules/entry/trust-and-bitcoin - 2011-09-11

I don't want to come off as a racist, but I don't think Bitcoin will be accepted anywhere before SE Asia, South America, and Africa. Basically, Bitcoin will thrive where people have been recently oppressed and don't give a shit anymore.

I just penned a post about my return trip form India, not aware about this thread. Guess I missed it.

I just happened to me in India during the '01 Christmas season. I toured the country for three weeks. I vividly remember the talk on the street everywhere I went about the stock exchange in India. In fact, if I recall correctly, a lot of the trading was taking place outdoors, outside of the stock exchange buildings. The reason I remember this obscure fact is because I happened to remember at the time that the original stock exchange here in the US took place under a tree on Wall Street (paraphrased).

The reason for stating the above is that I experienced first hand how the Indian people feel about finance, money, dollars, and gold. In fact, I was informed beforehand to make sure I bought with me to India as many dollars as possible. When I say dollars, I mean singles, opposed to fives, tens, and twenties. For some odd reason, the merchants liked the singles the best. I later learned that they exchange the dollars (not just singles) in Iran for gold. Once the gold was in India, the jewelry makers formed it into those Mr. T-type necklaces the Indian women are accustomed to wearing. In fact, it was, and maybe still is, cheaper for people to buy a tooled piece of 22K gold jewelry in Indian, than buying the same weight in 18K gold here in the US. On the surface, it sounds crazy, but trust me, because I knew first-hand that this is/was true back then.

All that said, I firmly believe that Bitcoin could easily prosper in India. And they do wire a hell of a lot money overseas from the US, as well as other countries. All it would take is to show them how much money they would save on transfer fees alone, and they would be all over it like flies on a freshly made Chicken Marsala dinner.

~Bruno~

If btc is to be used as an intermediary in remitance business, there will still be a need to get usd or euros into India and exchange them for rupees that are paid out to the receiver. This will reinstate the very same cost you were trying to avoid.
If there were simply an exchange in India or Filipines or Vietnam, the imbalance would drive the local btc value down until arbitrage becomes an option - and arbitrage would involve exchange fees, spread, and wire transfer fees.
Someone on this forum pointed out that the cost of moving government fiat across borders is much lower for banks and such, so they win again...   

When india understand what Bitcoin is, and this happens there will be no need to exchange the Bitcoins and Bitcoins will be the thing that everyone wants.

Remittances from USD or Euro to local currencies can be paid for by people that typically make a living through risk such as pawn shops and private lenders. The convenience of giving their customers a way for overseas loved ones to simply send a few bucks to cover an emergency through Bitcoin will make business owners have less risk with their money. It is cost prohibitive to send small sums via Western Union.

There are bank remittance branches of foreign banks in the US that make transfers fairly cheap, but not very convenient when the local banks themselves are sparse, crowded, and not open when you need them. People need cash. In developing countries you don't just pull out a VISA card at a street merchant. Bitcoin can be that cash.

I have doubts that that's true. Ignoring all the fees right now, people sending remittance usually aren't the richest and probably try and save every penny they can so I'd think trustworthiness of a currency is pretty high on their value scale meaning Bitcoin must become a lot ore established before people like that would trust it over traditional banking. Now I don't see a reason why some day this wouldn't happen I just don't think we're anywhere close to that day right now, at least not on a grand scale.

Nice to see the discussion about bitcoin in my native country.
Yes, gold and stock market is a common form of investment in India.

I have known bitcoin now for more than a year.
I am an expat and sending inward remittance to India every month.

There is a transaction fees of 15 AED (~4 USD), and the money is credited in 24 hours or less.

So for me, I dont think currently remittance in the form of bitcoin is feasible.

Just my thoughts.

How about augmenting the remittance with a little bitcoin?  Make it a challenge, to see what the recipient could trade them for.  Think of it as seeding the field. and learning.

And soon, in India there will be actual expenses that can be paid for with bitcoins.  If those bitcoins will pay to buy airtime on Airtel and TATA wireless, then that is money that didn't need to go through the remittance service.

 - http://www.bitcoinwireless.com (coming soon)  
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84348.0

bitcoinwireless seems good, having etisalat in the list as well (telecom provider where I live, UAE)

Unless indians themselves start to see bitcoin as an investment option. You just need one investor, willing to buy with cash at market rate, in one city, to have functioning remittance with 1% fee. I think there might be people who are willing to invest like this, since it is nices to buy bitcoins with cash, than with bank transfer.

Perfect utility for this is of course my newly launched service localbitcoins.com ;)

I wonder about this also. For the reasons the OP mentioned, it seems a natural fit.

Actually no one knows about such technology and concept about bitcioin.Partly cause, it has not caused any major scandal or such events.Indian media gives very less importance to international news unless, its direct involved with local interest.Media will definitely highlight bitcoin as untraceable medium of sending money if one such incidence happens and this news will be out to our 1.23 billion population.Already there has been issues regarding top politician,corporates and businessmen dumping their black money to tax havens of swiss banks.

sounds like India just needs a publicity stunt. You guys have a income tax system of some kind over there yes? Office place that administers such with a public building with sidewalk frontage? How about standing in front of it with a sign "My Bitcoins cannot be taxed. LOL!" and film it. I'd love to see this on youtube, done for every country that imposes an income tax on its cattle slaves people.

Does anyone here already tried to buy coins using MrBitcoins ?
Is it reliable ?
Is there other easy ways to buy bitcoin in India ?

Has there been any developments towards bitcoin adoption in India this past month?

Aside from this:
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101463.0

Mr. Bitcoins is affiliated with CryptoXChange -- which has been around for over a year now.   Because there is no per-transaction cost, you can try with a small amount, and then when you have bitcoins, do the same thing with a larger amount.  There is no penalty for the small amount.


You might find a digital currency exchange where you can then buy Liberty Reserve or something and convert that to bitcoin. It probably isn't easy or cheap.  Here's one (which I know nothing about):

 - http://www.sitepanel.in/buy-now.html

[Edit: or hey ... here's one that takes bank transfer and sells bitcoins:

 - http://www.ecurrencyzone.net/buy.php#3 ]

Seen this link on Twitter - http://www.ecurrencyzone.net/sell.php - Buy bitcoins in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

I have bought today Liberty reserve from sitepanel.in,waiting for my LR balance to increase .

Got my payment of LR within 3 hours on sunday,the only thing bad about it is that it costs 66 INR/USD for smaller amounts.

If you're from Mumbai, then we can meet in person and I can sell bitcoins to you for cash.
No transfer fees or anything like that.

Thanks but it is for a friend in Hyderabad.
And she's not yet convinced anyway  :(

I just saw this blog:

https://bensonsamuel.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/bitcoin-reaching-india-why-is-it-so-important/
https://bensonsamuel.wordpress.com/2012/09/15/bitcoin-in-india-2/

Apparently things are looking better and better for bitcoin in India. Exchange support is growing:
https://www.mrbitcoins.com/

If Bitcoin (finally) were to catch on in India, it would be fantastic!

Watching closely.

Oh - and there is now an Indian subforum on bitcointalk!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=89.0

That's not really strange that there are not many bitcoins users in india. That's because there is no good internet
connection and there are not enough Indians  who use bank accounts so they can't get any coins.

Necro post? Why did you both bring it up? The last post is nearly 4 years ago for (insert deity here, just being neutral)'s sake. Now everyone's going to start bumping this thread unless op locks it up which is nearly unlikely since last activity from OP is around 4 months ago, or a mod takes action to this thread.

No I don't think so, Internet is not an major issue in India now, it is accessible everywhere, no doubt its expensive in compare to other countries, but youth of the country are using bitcoin and I am one of them.

This is not true. there is a large amount of bitcoin users from India. and everyday coming more people to bitcoin from India.. the Indian Section of this forum can prove it. and even lots of people who using bitcoin they are not in this forum. so we can't really know how many users from India using bitcoin.
and India's Internet is not that much slow. we are in 4G World. and we have a good quality internet in India.

Bitcoin is becomign more and more popular in the world so I am sure that there are some people in India that make use of Bitcoin. You can see Bitcoin as a global currency because it does not matter were you are from anybody can use it.

I think this is really racist to say out of 1.2 billion there wont be enough..

Shit just got real. lol :D


That is a pure bullshit, you're talking shit to a dead thread which was posted back in 2012. At that time, there were not many people are aware of bitcoin until the december when it rised to $1000.

and for your information, india is getting better day by day. I have 100MBPS connection and I pay around 35USD.

Not enough indians who who bank accounts? From where did you get all this miscalculations?

Where are you from?  :-\

but india have cheap energy right? so at least for mining it would be a great place with a nice profit.
I think it's just matter of time to bitcoin catch in india, and they might be the next china.

Yeah India is really developing fast and there is best opportunity for bitcoin, even if small portion of population starts using bitcoin then it will add more value to user adoption.

i am from india and i dont agree with the point that many indians dont have a bank account i will say that all mostly 99% of us have bank accounts but i think thats the main problem for our slow growth. peoples here just trust banks but very less humans do any kind of busness related stuffs. some what like 10-20% indians from the total. its really week but still i am happy that we are building our networks day by day

yes that's right,i ever chat with people fromindia,and he was bitcoin holder,and want to earn bitcoin from any task,if india still have problem with bitcoin,i think its just matter of time,soon they will stand same with Philipine or indonesia,or maybe china.

Yeah India is a strong country and really on developing stage, and I think many people are aware about bitcoin and they are using it too.

The lack of adoption in India might be similar to the lack of adoption in Venezuela. It's not about the skills of the people or if they are tech-savvy or not. I think it's mainly an acquisition problem: Everybody wants Bitcoin, but nobody wants inflationary Rupees / Pesos. So, who will sell Bitcoin to the people there?

Another reason could be that people can't use it to buy goods they need and a lot of people (of cause not all) in India / Venezuela might have not enough money to play around with cryptocurrencies - they need the funds to survive.

ya.ya.yo!

Bitcoin is getting  popular in India and many people are using it too, its just a matter of time and there will be huge user adoption in future.

You can add illiteracy to the list too.I think low literacy is also one of the of the reasons why Indians are lagging behind in bitcoin adoption

Yeah Bitcoin is becoming more popular so it is normal for people in India to make use of Bitcoins. India also lies in Asian, that is where the most Bitcoin users are from.

Ah, It will gain movement in time... However, people in India are not well versed with cryptocurrency and its benefits...

In India, cryptocurrency will face a stiff competition owing to the numerous pocket banks available such as PayTm, Freecharge, PayUMoney, Etc, that does the work of micropayments...

To be mainstream, it will take time... Where I work, hardly 1 or 2 people about bitcoin. That too, they said they read in a paper..

I am lucky to know about bitcoin when way back in 2013, I read about the Silk Road Market....

Yeah even my friends are not aware about bitcoin, and the worst thing is that they are employed in top IT companies and still they have not heard about bitcoin yet.

I guess this article is far way to old but the reality is india is one of the heavy users of bitcoin. Lot of bitcoin circling there country as of now because i think they have so many programmers hackers gamblers so they use the bitcoin to become untraceable and also with tax because bitcoin is tax free and easy to use just send someone a bitcoin and it will receive instantly.   

My guess is that there may be as many as 50k holders of BTC in India. Admittedly, most are young folks with relatively tiny holdings but it's still early days. BTC is getting a lot more PR in India these days.

I have also seen a lot of Indian very active in online world, but one thing I have noticed they are more oriented towards USD and are less interested in crypto currency, but still a little number of Indians who are active on bitcoin are earning a big amount of it.

As long as you have to pay your taxes and bills in inflationary toilet paper there's always going to be a need to sell coins for it.

I don't really get the lack of India action either. Right now there are 4 full nodes in India. That's one per 300 million. Bulgaria has 10 times more. Pull yer fuckin fingers out.

I dont think number of full nodes signify anything about adoption. There are 122 Chinese full nodes as opposed to 290 of UK. But, Chinese volume (which can be treated as a parameter of adoption) is far far higher than that of UK.

yes we know,i have some india friends on social media,and they look like not talk about bitcoin,and i wonder is there any indians people comment on this thread?so we can directly know what and how bitcoin develop on Bollywood country.

That doesn't matter.Do you even know what are the primary problems of India ? Most of the people around don't know how to access Internet or say have no Internet services in their area.Well Internet is too far fetched,people don't have fuckin toilets so your ideology of running full nodes in ratio to the population should be keeping to yourself.You can't compare Bulgaria to India for 100 other reasons you haven't mentioned.


I'm from India and stop using Bollywood to portray your thoughts,it is shit.There are a lot of bitcoin users in India but that's nothing compared to the amount of people using Banks or other online payments.

I think it's a reasonable metric. I assume you can't mine without a full node and you'd be a bit insane to run an exchange without one.

Neither the UK or China have much real adoption. China has zero utility other than exchange gambling and mining. The UK has hardly any businesses accepting and no proper exchange.

So let's look at a country which does have a hint of real adoption such as the Netherlands. There are 329 nodes there.

Just watch me, baby. I'm sure a country that has a space program and is one of the largest buyers of consumer gold should be showing a hint of interest in Bitcoin.

Let's assume 25 million have a standard of living that a Westerner would start to recognise. That's still more than the population of the Netherlands.

What does any of it has to do with bitcoin? India has good scientists and rich people ,buying gold is part of the tradition and so is getting a college degree. Government has taken initiatives to make the space program happen.Btw if you ask an average Indian ,the name of India's space organisation(ISRO) I bet they can't answer.Why ? People barely care about stuff that doesn't matter directly to them.Its in their blood.

That's correct but don't think westerners cause a massive impact on people's POV.Fact is,the tech savvy,geeks and IT folks will use bitcoins but other than that its very hard to convince people to do something different.They don't want to be called out of their comfort zones.

Not true. Miners do not need to run full node. Only pool operator does. And there is no pool in India. Many big exchanges run on BitGo or BlockCypher API. So, for exchanges also full node is not a requirement. In fact, right now there are 2 real time exchanges, 1 shop, 1 app and 1 block explorer in India. But, as u can see, there are 4 nodes only. Even if someone runs a full node for business, he'll most likely put it up on VPS instead of running it from office/home.

What are u talking about? Gambling is one of the biggest industry where bitcoin finds its adoption.

In India, bitcoin finds big adoption among online freelancers.

No need to worry about bitcoin in india,they completly good country with good potential for bitcoin adoption,just like another asian countries,india also have good place and people to make bitcoin have more users,and i see some users from india come up to this thread and explain anything,good luck for bitcoin in india.

That is much appreciated but it is not as easy as it seems.Bitcoin in India will take a lot of time to bloom compared to other Asian countries.Assuming we have good tech savvy crowd here,we have fair chances though.

They gamble trading on the exchanges. There are no Chinese Bitcoin gambling sites. No doubt Chinese folks go to foreign gambling sites.

In every country, different people with different interests, bitcoins is not trend in India right now, but with time more and more people will start using bitcoin.

Morelike what has gambling to do with Bitcoin adoption in any country ? Not like majority of people like to double their money playing risky games.Also its not a fact ,people who loved to gamble ,gamble either way ,with bitcoins or without bitcoins,bitcoins just made a easy way out.

india is not open to the world

like china

they are a small country


World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. playermall.com (https://www.playermall.com) is no.1 world of warcraft marketplace.playermall start to accept bitcoins as one payment method. you can buy game goods by bitcoins payment now

There are so many Indian using bitcoin and there are some website to spend bitcoin in India, bu they are mostly underground.

I know Indian Government is not bothered about bitcoin as of now. But if they start bothering, a crackdown will be arranged by SEBI.

So it is wise to hide your ass from the beginning.

bitcon in indea is so much popular. i personally know so many people from india who are doing trading in bitcoin.i also know such kind of people who are investing their money in bitcoin. so many indians are also earning form signature campaign.

That's true many Indians are aware about bitcoin and they are successfully earning from it but the fact is only youth is aware about it and it will take time to reach to each and everyone.

India’s Bitcoin Boom: Zebpay Forecasts 500k New Users Monthly in 2018; Hits 1 Million App Downloads. It is awsome bitcoin in India
Indian bitcoin wallet and exchange platform Zebpay strikes a million downloads of its app-only service on Android and forecasts half a million new users a month, up from 200,000 currently.
Launched in 2015, bitcoin startup Zebpay is now among India’s major bitcoin exchanges alongside Unocoin and Coinsecure. Unlike its competitors, Zebpay has adopted an app-only model in a country where mobile tariffs are among the cheapest in the world with a soaring adoption rate of smartphones. https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/indias-bitcoin-boom-zebpay-forecasts-500k-new-users-monthly-2018-hits-1-million-app-downloads/

i am sure it will be grow more and more if nothing bad comes from govt or rbi side then btc will be huge here in few months .I am thinking to use btc as payment option on my shop  ;D

Of course yes bitcoin will be grow more in the world not on India only, due to the popularity of bitcoin is growth up, bitcoin is considered as new currency and digital asset, many users around the world will addopt the bitcoin on their part of investment even the Wall Street (stocks markets) wants to formally jump into Bitcoin waters https://t.co/duONTzNHtR it is nice news and it is just about the time of the growing up of bitcoin.

Not sure what you mean by this. India is predicted to grow to a larger population than China in the coming future. Furthermore, China I'd say is a lot more closed of to external forces (especially western ideals and strategies) as they have been in the entire past. India definitely has a lot to do in terms of becoming a much more well developed country, but I don't believe that India is very far off from China.

India is a very large country, however, the level of development in this country is not uniform, some places are extremely rich, but in contrast, some places are very poor, people can not even access to the internet, that's why bitcoin does not grow here.

India Won’t Introduce a Central Bank Digital Currency for Now. India will prove to be a very interesting country when it comes to regulating cryptocurrency. Recently, there has been talk of issuing a national digital currency, but it seems that may not happen in the end. This doesn’t clarify the current regulatory outlook for Bitcoin and altcoins all that much, though. For now, it does not appear we will see the creation of Lakshmi anytime soon, although those plans have not been put on ice indefinitely either. https://themerkle.com/india-will-not-receive-a-central-bank-digital-currency-for-the-time-being/

In developing countries like India, only 41% have banks with 89% in developed countries. Most people in developing countries will never experience modern modern forms developed by developed countries, and any change to this requires a gradual change to ensure efficient distribution. But with Bitcoin, people in developing countries now have the opportunity to pass through the current infrastructure, and move toward a decentralized financial system.

India is regarded as the perfect place for Bitcoin adoption because of the public attitudes towards their current financial system. The new info here is currently undergoing an aggressive period of demetization, in which residents change their banknotes to banks, so they can be expelled from the money supply.

Demonetization in India this country is experiencing an increase in demand for Bitcoin because it believes more new systems that are far from the control of government and banks, that is with a digital system.

Even on July 2, 2015, Indian President Narendra Modi announced his digital reform plan called Digital India. This campaign is available to create internet services in Indonesia, improve digital infrastructure in Indonesia, and increase internet connectivity in the country. The main goal of Digital India as well as to empower technology in India to help Bitcoin's positive view at government level.

In the past few months, many have speculated that India will legitimize Bitcoin like Japan. The rise of Bitcoin growth in India has not escaped the attention of the government, especially the Indian finance minister, Arun Jaitley. According to local reports, Jaitley has held inter-ministerial meetings to discuss matters related to digital currency. The meeting was attended by several prominent figures from the Indian parliament. After the meeting, Jaitley made a statement that highlights an in-depth report on Bitcoin, which will be released this July and will explain Bitcoin's vision.

It is nice to hear that the progress of bitcoin adoption in india is going in full force and the exchanges are getting heavy traffic of new users but until government dont give any clarification on bitcoin it cannot flourish more.

Most of the exchanges in India are flooded with users and some of the exchanges even stopped accepting new members until they could accommodate everyone,since all of the exchanges follow strict KYC policy sometimes it takes a longer time get approval and it shows the growth of bitcoin in India and two days back there was a feature in times of india regarding bitcoin ,it is a interesting read .I think that the government will follow steps like Japan to curtail fraud and come up with regulations.

In now days bitcoin grow ina faster rate in india. Many teenager, adult and middle class people involved in it. In India 1bitcoin is equals to 376488 rupees. According to a current scenario it is good price of bitcoin. Most of india used zebpay app as bitcoin wallet. According to zebpay predation 500k new user will be join monthly in 2018. Indian government declared bitcoin as a legal. So their is nothing to worry about bitcoin investment. Bitcoin become an financial back bone of many Indian family.

Yes. More became aware and they share into it.  Its getting spread all over India day by day. Hope bitcoin enriches Indian bitcoin users. I am sure many would good lifestyle because of bitcoin.

I think the currency like bitcoin is very known to all the countries and many of user will be from India as well as it is the world famous currency most of the people get buy and sale their currencies online in the world market so I think all the country members are working for bitcoin it’s not up to the size of the country it is up the value of bitcoin to others the country like India will also like it.

They are busy investing in foreign projects. India needs indians Bitcoin projects or crypto peojects

Apart from China, India is the country with the most people dealing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the world, and it's really not surprising considering the number of people living in absolute poverty there and we all know that people living in poverty are always attracted to the prospect of making money all the time.

that's also the reason why more people got scam because of this perceptions not realizing how this system will help them to achieve financial freedom,
there's a lots of people from india whos also playing with bitcoin and other crypto coins the only problem is there's also a lots of people who tried to
gain in an easy ways trying to create hyip and Ponzi or scam projects.

It is the best luck of your country that the government of India has declared bit coin as legal crypto currency which is indeed an act of encouragement for the people of India and that is the basic reason that all age of people got involved in bit coin without ant fear and reluctance.

Being a long-term resident of India, I am pleasantly surprised by your statement. Even then, I would say that the Bitcoin trade volumes in India and the user-base is quite small and not really comparable to those in countries such as China and Russia. I really doubt whether India would rank among the top 10 countries, in terms of Bitcoin trade volumes.

Are you sure that Indian government have declared bitcoin as a legal. because as much i know still their is no details about bitcoin status in India. Because if Indian government have declared Bitcoin as legal then you cannot think that how fast the progress will be their in India as all merchants can accept bitcoin and other coins as payment system, just like Japan.


I think you are wrong because as much i know India will be in the top 10 countries in terms of Bitcoin trade Volumes and even you can see the price difference in international market and Indian market, here the price is 10% to 20% high then in international market.

I have many friends in India who are using bitcoin and investing on bitcoin.Also bitcoin is legal in India so people of India can use bitcoin without any hesitation.Many young people above 18 age are preferred bitcoin as earning option.There is no doubt indian people are making bitcoin more stronger by investing on it.Many shops and big markets are accepting bitcoin as pay method.So many new people are showing interest on bitcoin and using it.

I heard that India Government is considering ban Bitcoin.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ban-all-crypto-dealers-india-committee-reportedly-tells-government
This is really awful! The increasing of Bitcoin leads they can't wait to control it.  :(

At the point when the bitcoins was not expected that time the rate of joblessness in the India was too high however as the bitcoins were presented the rate of joblessness in the India gets lower and lower with fast and now in the year 2017 the rate of joblessness in India is practically completed due to the bitcoins in light of the fact that all the jobless individuals entered the universe of bitcoins and put some of there cash in bitcoins and now they are carrying on with an effective life world.

In India, because of the religious reasons, the promotion of Bitcoin has had an impact. However, I think the prospect of Bitcoin in India is very good. Over time, Bitcoin may well be far beyond our imagination in India.

Now Indians are investing huge amount in BitCoin. India's Fastest Bitcoin Trading Platform | The GreenPay is coming soon.
Read all about the GreenPay >>> https://medium.com/@thegreenpay

As time passes Bitcoin gets stronger, though in its journey is not so smooth because there are some investors who often speculate in trading this cryptocurrency. Any government policy can bring its own impact to society that ultimately makes people think and decide themselves to put their assets where. Bitcoin is now an attractive option for maintaining assets. As is known, India has a large market for Bitcoin. If India has legitimized Bitcoin, chances are the future for Bitcoin will be brilliant.

India, Asia's second most populous nation in the world, with a population of more than one billion people, is considered the country of the Bitcoin revolution.

In terms of India's market and national system and its development, bitcoin should not invest in the Indian market, but there are many Indians in the Bitcoin forum because they can get bitcoin through bounty missions.

In India, Unocoin is one of the most popular website to buy & sell Bitcoins. It’s newbie friendly because the interface is more user-friendly & they have both an iOS & an Android app.

A few things to know before buying Bitcoins in India:

Bitcoin is legal in India. However, it’s not regulated by RBI.
According to RBI virtual currencies (like Bitcoins, Litecoins, Etherium, Dogecoins, etc.) trade, and usage of virtual currencies as a medium for payment is not authorized by any central bank or monetary authority.
Unocoin is a legal website to buy & sell Bitcoin.
Well, it’s a no-brainer that RBI & the Indian government will start taking Bitcoin seriously as it’s being adopted by more users globally. I’m pretty sure you are already aware of how popular Bitcoin & Blockchain technology has become in the past four years.

Every country member must give the guidelines like this for the newbies. By all the information which you have given to us about bitcoins and india, I will assume that you belong to india, so can you please tell us what happened to indian fiat currency and bitcoin once the country was passing through demonetization phase. I have heard that all the black money from the different land lords were transferred to bitcoin to escape it and now they are getting the fiat currency back which is the cause of the market fall?