I think its criminal for government to ban this. To take away the jobs in BitCoin exchanges without any sound reason. Its abuse of power. And the BitCoin community will fight back if it happens.

You don't see anything unethical in government trying to take away people's right to participate in biggest financisl innovation of hundred years ??

Its definitely not criminal .. Its scare of a new technology ..
Mahatma Gandhi broke salt laws. Was that criminal ?


 

On April 20, a government panel is meeting to decide whether BitCoins are illegal.

www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/markets-business/exclusive-should-bitcoin-be-allowed-in-india-govt-panel-to-meet-apr-20-to-discuss-2249407.html

If they decide that BitCoins are illegal then centralized BitCoin exchanges will have to shut shop.

There are the few ideas how can these exchanges re-emerge:

1 . Convert from centralized exchange to a decentralized platform like Localbitcoin and Paxful.

2. Opening a page in dark web and offering the same service. Users can access it using Tor browser.

3. Collaborating to create a torrent like technology as a response to Napster closing down. We can use BitCointalk to design and collaborate to create a platform to achieve the same.

Remember, governments can only attack centralized systems. BitCoins are a transformative tool that can potentially eliminate poverty. We have to protect it from temporary ignorance of few regulators and politicians.

So many people have privately messaged me about this article that I think I need a public post.

BitCoins are a game changer. First time ever, people in the world can exchange value amongst themselves directly. Till now economies and people of the world were fragmented in national lines with governments China and India controlling 1.3 Billion people, US controlling 300 million, EU controlling 500 million and so and so forth.

The marvels of Blockchain and BitCoin technologies have created a unified economy of 7.1 Billion people. Can you imagine how big the banks and insurance companies and creative enterprises will be. It will be huge. And that excites me. We can unleash new creativities of the world at a scale never seen before.

Unfortunately this is scaring national financial agencies as BitCoins is not under their control. But this is technology is out there, and cannot be undone. The Jeannie is out of the bottle.

India is a democratic country. The welfare of its people is the primary role of its national institutions. Over a period of time they will realize the creative potentials of this technology, and being in a democracy, the people will decide on this issue in its right merit. But there be will be scare stories in newspapers, and bumps along the way. This in fact is a sign of a revolutionary technology.

Ranchi Mall is a pure Internet enterprise. It does not have a office or fixed location. All our employees and our customers operate out of Internet. Ranchi Mall is also not an incorporated entity. And that structure makes it very suitable for Internet enterprises.

In the world of Internet and BitCoins, its a free market. You can offer your services without asking for anyone's permission, and consumers have a right to be offered as many choices as they want. Nothing is by coercion. Nothing is by force. Every action is due to pure voluntary associations only. And Ranchi Mall has made a conscious choice of operating in that world.

One of the idea of BitCoin bonds was also to insulate our customers from legal risk. Thats why we do not sell you BitCoins directly. We procure BitCoins in legal jurisdictions of the world. And then pass you on some of the benefits. Any adverse law on BitCoins do not effect our customers because they have procured no BitCoins.

Ranchi Mall will of course innovate and keep on exploring the wonders of this technology.

We believe if values can be freely exchanged, poverty can be eliminated. And this idea is too powerful not to explore it deeper.

http://m.economictimes.com/news/economy/policy/use-of-bitcoin-illegal-can-attract-anti-money-laundering-law/articleshow/57874230.cms

Rohit Tripathy
Founder, Ranchi Mall
https://facebook.com/ranchimall

Anything in BitCoin world can be scammed without traditional recourses. I am no exception. But I do hope to establish a clean reputation with my rather unconventional methods over time.

I accept your judgement 😃 Being prudent is a nice thing. This will product will take time for mass acceptance. But once the reputation is established, you will have a different opinion. Its basically aimed at bank deposit users, not BitCoin users.

BitCoin users are better off buying and holding BitCoins on their own provided they can live with ups and downs of prices.

More risk is more gain always.

And how do you get licensed for any BitCoin product in any case .. Hahaha

"Do I sign a binding contract "
Yes. I do a blockchain contract which binds Ranchi Mall publicly to this financial contract.

"Is this product licensed"
No its not. BitCoin itself is not licensed so putting a BitCoin based product to licensing requirement is a big contradiction. However customer safety is still needed and we have to devise non-licensing methods to achieve the objectives of protecting the customer. Vendor need to protect reputation, Internet Activism, transparency of scheme and data, and full disclosures can achieve the same goals. Thats my belief. I will not put up any of my BitCoin based product to any licensing ever. Government licensing will open doors for entrepreneurial stagnation and corruption. I would want my potential customers to know our philosophy in advance. And then make up their mind if they want to associate. None of BitCoin exchanges are licensed, and people still give their money to them. This is exactly the correct way.

"Lockin period is too long"
I need long term investors. I am a big follower of Warren Buffett long term investment strategies. I do have some other BitCoin based financial contracts like Art Bonds and Startup Contracts in pilot where there is no lockin. But for this product lockin is must to deliver the kind of returns BitCoins as an asset class is capable of.

"Do I accept payments in BitCoins or Fiat"
My preference is BitCoins. But most of our customers have never brought BitCoins before. So I do that for them. We have a few who paid in BitCoins. However the returns is denominated in US dollars.

"Taking to USD 1350 will leave too little for growth"
I disagree. The potential is much higher. But you can always treat it as 13 percent bearing bonds no matter what price you got it, and thats a great assured return on its own if you accept counter-party risks.

Your concerns are absolutely genuine. Thats why I have opened myself up for scrutiny.

There are lot of scam funds out there. It is expected in freely operating market. Thats why buyer beware is such an important need in BitCoin universe.

I am not operating a scam. I want to build a healthy and long term relationship with BitCoin users of this world who have given us such a wonderful instrument.

SEC rejecting Winklevoss ETFs is very good news. Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned a decentralized system of value transfer. We want to stay true to that vision. We don't want centralization to creep in through backdoors.

BitCoins is direct power to people. We want politicians and regulators to be out of it for once.

Lockin period is absolutely needed for safety of investors in this case, and my safety too. Just not BitCoins markets, but any financial market can behave very irrationally in short term. However, you hide cannot hide the fundamentals in longer term.

The core hypothesis in this product is that demand growth for BitCoins will outstrip the supply of BitCoins by more than 13 percent on annualized basis. However for this phenomena to show up, you have to give adequate time.

I have judged 3 years to be adequate time.

So investors have to take that commitment if they really want stability of returns. This is not a get rich quick product. I want investors on a safe and sound journey with me.

Currently I am not accepting any new customers for this product. I will open up the window again if prices go beyond USD 1350 per BitCoin. With current price trends, looks it may take time

I will put a message in India BitCointalk group if I reopen. And as always, first time customers will have an upper limit of Rs 7000. And I will open it up only for 15 new customers then.

I am here for long run. So its going to be easy and slow

Its the tortoise that wins the race, not the rabbits.

I have a full list of people and their investments on my web and FB link here as the whole thing is public to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

http://ranchimall.net/BitBonds/

 https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1373337272709276&substory_index=0&id=959702797406061

Those people who have known me for years have higher limits than Rs 7000.

The total investments is roughly USD 9000 or lets say Rs 6 Lakhs now. My annual guarantee costs is about 1000 USD.

So these amounts are not large. I have personal capital coverage of at least 10 times that amount for this product. So even if BitCoin prices go to zero, I can meet all my existing commitments without loosing a single hour of sleep.

The future increase in customers will happen only when the product itself will generate profits to cover future minimum guarantee requirements. So I will not put my personal capital at work for future customers.

Since I am taking 100 percent of downside price risk, 50 percent of upside gains is a fair deal for customers with 12 or 13 percent minimum guaranteed annual return.

The amounts look small now, because I am treading slowly and carefully on this. The biggest challenge is good risk management, and making sure that the program is stable over a very long time, lets say 20 years or so.

Well I have only accepted 50 customers. Not taking any new ones for now. A Ponzi scheme needs new customers to pay for old. A ponzi scheme also offers astronomical rate of returns, and needs aggressive selling. A ponzi scheme also usually creates a pyramid or binary strucrure.

I have an upper limit on investment per customer. I have an upper limit on number of customers. And I have an absolute flat and linear structure. No sales agent. Only when enough profits accumulate to guarantee minimum returns that I am going to reopen for new customers. I can totally freeze this whole thing today, and will have no issues in servicing the existing investors without a hitch if BitCoin prices generate 13 percent per annum or more in next 3 years. Thats roughly 450 USD price gain in 3 years. Not a tall order in my opinion. Even if BitCoin prices are not above 1500 USD after 3 years, I can still honor my contracts by my personal capital for current customers.

So Sir, by no stretch of imagination is it a Ponzi scheme.

Well .. Both of your assertions are assumptions 😊 I have done 4 bond issues, and all of them were fully taken up the within 24 hours. So obviously my assumptions come up with proof of execution 😉

And if BitCoins were as easy as mobile phones as you claim, they would be selling like mobile phones too.

Further more I am not claiming no risk. There is a counterparty risk of Ranchi Mall default that the investors are taking. I am only claiming if counter party risks were accepted, the price and IT risks are minimized with BitCoin Bonds. All our investors understand that risk, and have chosen to accept it against the consideration they are receiving.

Because I believe the price appreciation over 3 years will be more than that. And I have sold limited bonds with adequate personal capital to guarantee those returns including price protection in the interim.

Its targeted at first time investors who find BitCoins too complicated, and do not want to take price and IT risk.

And those who do not have a clear view of price trends on BitCoins.

The rate of return is higher than normal fixed deposits .. So its an attractive alternative.

Its a financial product created by Ranchi Mall based on BitCoin prices. Currently offered in a very limited scale to iron out the procedures.

For first time customers, you basically invest 100 USD or Rs 7000. All of proceeds are used to buy BitCoins. And you get 13 percent annual assured returns. In addition you also get price protection against downside risk. And 50 percent of all price gains belong to you .. The rest 50 percent is owned by Ranchi Mall. There is a 3 year lockin period.

There is limitations in number of clients we accept because Ranchi Mall has to block its capital to assure returns.

In order to prevent it being used for money laundering and terrorist financing, the names of bondholders and amounts invested are public.

You can find entire history in http://facebook.com/ranchimall

"To all investors of Ranchi Mall BitCoin bonds issue"

BitCoin prices have fallen below 1000 USD. All BitCoin bond holders should treat their bonds as 12/13 percent annual rate of interest bearing instruments at invested amounts right now These instruments have full price protection, and minimum return guarantees.

Furthermore Ranchi Mall is taking over minimum guarantee requirements in 1057 series bonds from Deepa Khanapurkar. All other terms and conditions remain the same in that series including distribution of profit arrangements.

The current price fall is due to a more fundamental reason than previous price falls that occured due to Chinese government intervention and non-approval of ETF by SEC. There is a split in BitCoin movement itself, with one faction wanting to change underlying technology, and other faction wanting to keep it same. The faction that wants to keep things same was dominant till now, but the other faction called BitCoin Unlimited is gaining more support. The faction which gets 51 percent support wins. BitCoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto whom I consider a genius had a mechanism to solve such issues. That mechanism has never been used till now, and a lot of people including those in BitCoin core group have no idea how will it work out. They feel an unstructured break can happen, which is called "Hard Fork". This uncertainty is causing the price fall.

But of course no such hard fork will happen. The moment BitCoin Unlimited gains 51% of mining support, they will be the new masters, and they will decide the shape of underlying technology. And current leaders, the BitCoin Core group will fade into oblivion. BitCoin design is so strong that I do not consider hard fork issue anything more than temporary fear

So this in our view is a temporary price fall. Ranchi Mall holds onto its belief that BitCoins is one of the best investible assets around, and given enough time, 3 years in our opinion, the superiority of BitCoins as an asset class will amply be clear. We have coded that expectation as a 3 year lock-in period for our investors.

After Shanghai, I am in New York now.

I have not been really able to communicate the power of BitCoins. What gets me so excited about it. So I will try.

In fact things do not look exciting at all if you see it as another method of payment. Visas and dollars of the world do a good enough job of it.

Where BitCoins make a big difference is its ability to do new things that were never possible before.

Imagine this:

1. Earlier you used to put money in a bank for safe keeping and they used to pay interest. Although the interest accumulation could make you feel that your deposits are growing, in actual they were decreasing in net purchase value even after compounding interests due to inflation.

In BitCoin world you simply hold BitCoins in your wallet. It will not pay you any interest. But after lets say 4 years its value will be more than bank deposit in cash + interest.

You are the your own bank now.

2. Opening an offshore bank account is ridiculously difficult due to impossible laws.

Now all you have to do is to put your money in your BitCoin Address and get cash back anywhere in the world where BitCoin ATMs are tolerated.

3. Earlier if you were an entrepreneur, you had to run around a venture capitalist for funding. Now you can directly raise funding in ICO (Initial Coin Offerings). You do have to prove that you have a great idea. But your investors are not one big VC but multiple smaller communities all over the world who empathize with your ideas.

4. Earlier you used to go to stock exchanges for listing. Now you go to "Bank of the future" for raising finances and returning investments back to investors without going through tonnes of paperwork. You create your own terms and conditions.

5. And the best part .. All your pitches need to be made to existing BitCoin users themselves. There is no need to appeal to people who do not understand BitCoins. BitCoins community is big enough to make a big difference. It is very passionate, calls our fake BS ideas ruthlessly, backs truly ingenuitive ideas and is not bounded by geographical barriers.

6. I am going to try some of these ideas with this fascinating community in this trip itself. That really makes me excited. To be still early in something I think is world changing.

Had a day of layover in Shanghai enroute to US. Got a transit visa, and went in the city.

So just as I was in China, a Chinese government intervention has come in BitCoins market. Thats why the prices fell 20%.

So BitCoins is now running into organized government resistance. Again, this was a factor that I never anticipated. But still, it changes none of my optimism for BitCoins.

A key difference with respect to currency intervention vis a vis BitCoins by governments is they don't control the supply here. So to intervene in BitCoins market, they have to either buy lots of them, or short sell it by borrowing it in BitCoins derivatives markets like Bitfinex or Poloniex. In both cases, they have to cover their sell position. Which means they have to buy it sooner or later. And given that BitCoin has its own secular demand which is rising dramatically, any intervention is going to be defeated in not too much time.

And since I am building a position in BitCoins very very long term Warren Buffet style, I will use this as an opportunity to increase my BitCoins.

I thank the taxpayers of China for giving me a gift of lower BitCoins prices. That too on a day I am in China.

Xie Xie.