[Sources:]

I was scrolling through Instagram when I noticed a post saying that the CEO of Uber has made an announcement that it will start accepting bitcoin as a payment.
This is a huge news because accepting bitcoin as a payment from such big companies will boost bitcoin adoption.
Although they have not mentioned any timeline as of when they are going to start accepting bitcoin but they are determined with their decision.

Uber runs across various countries including India and so we will have to wait and see how they are dealing with the regulations in various countries.
This will become a major challenge for them because crypto is not a legal tender in India and many other countries where Uber is used.
Although the news is good but we haven't seen any impact of this news on BTC price. So either people are not aware of it yet or may be there's something that I am missing.

Sources:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvX8Gt8M5pT/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng%3D%3D
https://www.binance.com/en/feed/post/896233

I meant the eye balls  because that's what I read it on forbes Worldcoin: The Cryptocurrency That Wants To Scan Your Eyeballs

So world coin is basically a project co-founded by openAI CEO Sam Altman whose aim is to provide users a digital identity.
They will be doing this with the help of scanning iris from users' eye balls.

Fun fact is that I saw worldcoin team at Delhi metro station and they were asking users to give their biometric data and they would get 4000rs worth of tokens.
I didn't buy their idea and considered them a scam and then 2 days later I found their coin getting listed on binance.

I personally think that the Indian board should have a P2P thread open in case they have something to trade.
Its better to trade with trusted people than to trade on other P2P channels like Binance P2P.
The chances of getting scammed or account frozen are relatively high on other platforms than on this thread.
Only active Indian board members will be allowed to trade on this thread.

I want you guys' suggestions so that I can convert this thread to a P2P trade channel. Otherwise I will just lock it up if nobody is interested.

Just imagine you wake up one day to find out that there was huge asteroid that just dropped on earth.
The news is all over and then the world finds out this



Although it's just a made up thing yet there can be such a possibility. We never know.
But what we do know is bitcoin's total supply is just 21 million and that makes it scarce.
It's more precious than gold.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtvdmZoPmxV/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng%3D%3D

Hi all,

What is the most secure way of buying a hardware wallet in India ?
I know etherbit is a reputable seller from where we can buy hardware wallets in India.

But lets discuss the possible risks of buying from this site and alternatives to this site.
I am kinda paranoid when it comes to hardware wallet. What if the seed is leaked or tampered.

Even if I consider buying it from this site then which one should we go for.
Ledger Nano S costs 7k INR while the Ledger Nano S Plus costs 10k INR.

I live in India, and the government has implemented a new policy regarding online gaming winnings.
They have introduced a 30% upfront tax on net winnings for individuals engaged in online gambling.
While this is a significant change, it is aimed at ensuring taxation compliance and contributing to the country's revenue.
However, it is important to note that this policy might influence the online gaming landscape in India.



Source: Cleartax

So we know that the only reward bitcoin miners will have, after the year 2140 when all the bitcoins are mined from the total bitcoin supply, is the transaction fees from all the transactions in the block.
But what would happen in case the mempool is empty and there are no unconfirmed transactions propagated on the bitcoin network (basically no transactions in the block to be mined) .
I know this occurrence is very rare and there will always be transactions on the bitcoin network but just in case ?

Will the bitcoin miner receive nothing since there are no block rewards and no transaction fees to collect since there are no transactions in the block at first place?

Did some search but couldn't find anything through the forum search and chatGPT's answer seems conflicting too.

Just after the 30% direct tax and 1% TDS on crypto transactions, the crypto wave in India was drastically decreased.
A lot of negativity was spread in the crypto community of India or so did we think.
The people didn't completely stop trading in cryptocurrencies since an announcement was recently made which shares the amount collected as tax.
A whopping 158 crores was collected by the Indian government from crypto taxation and this number will only increase in future now that bitcoin is bullish again.
This is just the amount which people have shown to the government and we can't even imagine what would be the actual volume of crypto transactions from India.

Read more at https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/tds-on-crypto-assets-modi-govt-collected-rs-158-cr-direct-tax-in-fy23-prevention-of-money-laundering-income-tax/ar-AA19dFNg

India along with UAE is creating a path for CBDC based payment method which will be used to facilitate remittances and trade.
USA is currently the middleman imposing their charges on these transactions through USD based settlements.
With the creation of new CBDC, the USD charges will be vanished and thus USA will be eliminated as a middleman.
This will definitely provoke USA against India but this will eventually happen and thus valuation of USD will decrease over time.



Twitter Link

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/india-uae-to-explore-cbdc-bridge-to-facilitate-trade-remittances-without-usd

So the new budget guidelines have been announced and it has been said that the new ITR forms will have a separate section for crypto income.
A tax rate of 30% would be applicable for any income from transfer of cryptocurrencies. No deductions or exemptions allowed on such incomes.

Crypto trading has become legal in India after all   but it's just that the high tax rate which is bothering many crypto enthusiasts in India.
Are you guys going to fill up the crypto section in the new ITR forms ?

I guess we don't really need to fill it up until we exchange the coins for INR and withdraw to our bank account.
How would the government know if I hold any coins ?

Source: https://www.outlookindia.com/business/new-itr-forms-have-separate-section-for-crypto-income-details-here-news-262204

Just came across a recent post on Instagram where it mentioned that we can see a little relief on crypto taxations in the upcoming Union Budget.
While earlier, there was a 30% tax imposed on gains from crypto as well as TDS on every transaction, now there are talks that we can see a little relief on these.
All these are just rumors till now and only the official announcement from the government can be considered final.




Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CoBjcNiMNt-/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY%3D

Rishi Sunak is the next prime minister of UK. He is from an Indian origin and is the youngest prime minister of UK since 19th century.
Keeping all that aside the interesting fact is that he is a firm crypto believer. I got to know this when I was scrolling insta today.
It seems that crypto regulations have also been approved right after he became the PM of UK.
This shows how positive he is about cryptocurrencies and he might lead the way for a wide adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Read more:
U.K. Lawmakers Vote to Recognize Crypto As Regulated Financial Instrument
Rishi Sunak is Pro Crypto. Is This the Start of Global and Institutional Bitcoin Adoption?

The long awaited ETH merge has finally happened today and thing went smooth as for the merge from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
I personally thought that ETH would dump as soon as the merge would happen and I can see that it is dumping in price but slowly.
There were also rumors that a hard form might occur but we didn't see any of that happening.
So what do you guys think, what's next with Ethereum ?

Recently I got to know that a new blockchain forum, specifically it's a India based blockchain forum that has been created.
This forum has been created with an idea to collaborate with the government on verticals such as CBDC, Metaverse and NFTs.
Currently around 40 influencers have joined this forum. I wasn't able to find the name of the forum though.
None of the articles has mentioned the link of the forum too.

What do you guys think about this forum ?

Source: India blockchain forum plans to chart future with governments, regulators

The title says it all. As far as I know there is one genuine Ledger Hardware wallet "reseller" in India.
But still, the wise ones recommend to directly buy the hardware wallet from official websites only.
Now comes the question what would be the best way to buy a hardware wallet in India.
Also, which one should it be? Ledger or Trezor ?

The second question is if we buy directly from the official website would there be a risk in delivery ?
May be the customs can keep it under their radar or tamper it or raise legal issues against us?

Throughout the years I have just been holding bitcoin and ethereum in a non-custodial wallet but now I have decided to diversify my portfolio.
There are a lot of potential altcoins out there and I have picked up a few. Storing altcoins on an exchange id obviously not the right thing to do.
While I know that hardware wallet would be the best place to store altcoins I want to know other options as well.

Thinking about long term perspective.

1. For now, I have been thinking to store them on a non-custodial wallet but then again which wallet should it be ? My choice would be Exodus but let me know which one is best.
2. Would it better to store different altcoins in different wallets or decrease the hassle of maintaining different wallets and settle down with just one with all the coins.

It's a tough year for SOL supporters because of the recent outages in the Solana blockchain.
Bots keep on attacking the blockchain by spamming millions of transactions yet the devs don't have a solution to these.
It's no rocket science that spammers are using the low fees and high TPS as a leverage but this has to stop soon or else SOL will collapse just like LUNA.
The latest outage was today when the team had to restart the blockchain because millions of transactions were being spammed on the network and so they had to halt the blockchain.
I was once a strong believer of the Solana blockchain but this is really bad for a blockchain and completely unacceptable.

More talks: https://www.reddit.com/r/solana/comments/v33tcs/does_the_solana_dev_team_not_have_a_robust_qa/

[Resources:]

I just saw this video on Youtube which explains how Solar 3.0 is gonna change the world of using Solar energy for producing power.
It uses Perovskites to create Solar cells which are highly efficient in extracting energy from the sunlight.
Now comes good part, it would cost 15 times less than the traditional solar panels that are commercially used these days.

So I thought why not use these for bitcoin mining. It would be cost efficient and hence it will increase the profits for mining bitcoin.
Although, it is not officially released yet it will surely be used at large scale and will gain immediate mainstream adoption from my perspective.

Resources:

https://medium.com/0xmachina/solar-energy-3-0-the-perovskite-solar-cell-1e33531ee6ee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQmFVcD-Mbo

I have read that many people choose to store their bitcoin private keys on steel plates by engraving the seed phrase on the plates.
I thought of doing the same and so I searched for vendors around me and contacted one of them.
After discussing with the vendor I got to know that we can engrave the keys on steel as well as aluminium plates.
He also said that aluminium plates are cheaper than steel but on the other hand steel is stronger than aluminium.
And so I have the below two questions to ask you guys before I proceed with securing my keys.

1. Should I go with aluminium or steel plates ?

2. Wouldn't it be a risk if I give my keys to the vendor to engrave it on the plates ? What if he steals my coins?
Also, If I don't give the words to the vendor how will he engrave it ?

One solution that I can think of is to find 3-4 similar vendors and give a few words to each of them to engrave on the plate

Lira is the fiat currency of Turkey which is facing a sharp decline in it's value. The rise of inflation in Turkey has dumped the value of Lira.
With an inflation rate of about 20% - 25% the price of Lira has declined about 45% this year with a peak dump of about 20% in a week and 15% in a day.
Those numbers are high enough and causing a panic in the market. The media also say that it might be at the edge of hyperinflation in Turkey.

This has caused a rise in the price of bitcoin in Turkey. People are opting to use bitcoin when the fiat currency is falling sharply.
The inflation has influenced so much that the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced a crypto law that will soon be shared with the Parliament.
This means crypto will soon be legalized in Turkey. I think it's a good decision and will help Turkey fight inflation well.

Sources:
Turkey’s crypto law is ready for parliament, President Erdoğan confirms
Turkey’s Inflation Is An Example Of Why We Need Bitcoin