Bitcoin Stores In India

[Benson Samuel]

I happened to have an interesting chat with someone very interested to invest in India's Bitcoin infrastructure.

Anyone open to discuss Bitcoin stores in India? 1 or 2 in each major city, that will trade Bitcoin over a counter.
Anyone aware of any regulatory problems? If not what would be an ideal setup?
Which parts of India has the greatest Bitcoin population?
Would college fests and IT companies allow a Bit-Education stall in their premises?

Anyone thought of a venture like this?

[Benson Samuel]

bump

[dishwara]

Most people in India in the state of receiving money, instead of sending.
Parents live in India, while their children working in many foreign countries.
To send money, many using western union or banks.
To send HUGE BLACK money, they use hawalas.

Getting out money in WU, bank, post office.........are very easy & their are many to help, if an illiterate wants to get money.
No one wants to change in to another method if they cant find it easy to use.
Bitcoin is still in BETA state.
To use that people MUST use be computer geeks, coz of client install, receive coins, send coins, download block chain.........................

The very first thing which will make some one to stop using bitcoin in India is downloading full block chain, which is in gigabytes.
Many ISP's give only 1-5 GB per month.
The time it takes to download block chain alone will upset users.

Many Indians mining, coz they can sell it as commodity, instead of using currency.
Simply, Mine-> sell-> profit.

So it will take more time for Indians to adopt Bitcoin as currency.
unless some Bollywood/Tollywood/kollywood actors act in cheating, costly, tricky ads to promote bitcoin.

[Benson Samuel]

The recent traction in Mumbai and Bangalore suggests that it is opening up a lot more.
I had an interview with the director of Bitfilm.com who has already been working with art and animators from Bangalore. Check out my blog.

We can also do a lot of meetups to start sharing information and other learning platforms. All these will be sponsored.
Events as well.

Any thoughts?

The Bollywood idea sounds pretty good

[Benson Samuel]

Here is a meetup for Bitcoiners in Bangalore.

http://t.co/lLxBu0W8

[dishwara]

I read your blog.
You already have some access to movie industry, due to bitfilm.

If you can able to access popular movie stars or cricket players or anyone in media lights, you use them to promote bitcoins.

meetups are good.
But the total people wants to join bitcoin will be less than 0.0001 - 0.00001 (1 lakh - 10000) in the  India's total 100+ crore(1 billion) population.

[Benson Samuel]

Not yet getting much traction on the meetup.

But can give the film and cricket industry a strong poke. I know a few people here and there who can make things happen.

RBI regulation sucks, but am not giving up on this.

Few companies are fighting tooth and nail against these regulations, we will overcome them quite soon.

3 licences have already been issued by the RBI for prepaid cash cards in a closed loop system. Lets hope for the best.

[Benson Samuel]

Here is a regulatory study of Bitcoin in India.

It contains necessary links to the Reserve Bank of India's Documents.

http://wp.me/p2ITcm-2U

[Coin.Karma]

Hey Benson, good to see you here. I saw a few of your tweets online. Dishwara has been around for a long time.  I am from Kerala, based in Cochin. Have been involved with bitcoin since a while. I would love to help out and promote any bitcoin in anyway, already been doing my bit for more than a year. We need to get much more traction.

I personally have tried and and got atleast 5 people interested in bitcoin. Its great to see more from around the country. I have access to 4 stores in the family, from fashion, to fresh flowers to bridal equipment etc. It would be very easy for me to convince them to start accepting bitcoin.

I am also willing to look at the possibility of buying and selling bitcoins locally in Kerala. In talks with another firm to regularly pick up their monthly BTC earnings at small discount of Mt.Gox

bitcoin zindabad

[Benson Samuel]

Hello Coin Karma, reach out to me on Skype. We should talk for sure.

benson.samuel1

[Benson Samuel]

4 have joined the meetup . Anymore? I will bring a few peeps as well.

[xTommYx]

Hey Benson, good to see you here. I saw a few of your tweets online. Dishwara has been around for a long time.  I am from Kerala, based in Cochin. Have been involved with bitcoin since a while. I would love to help out and promote any bitcoin in anyway, already been doing my bit for more than a year. We need to get much more traction.

I personally have tried and and got atleast 5 people interested in bitcoin. Its great to see more from around the country. I have access to 4 stores in the family, from fashion, to fresh flowers to bridal equipment etc. It would be very easy for me to convince them to start accepting bitcoin.

I am also willing to look at the possibility of buying and selling bitcoins locally in Kerala. In talks with another firm to regularly pick up their monthly BTC earnings at small discount of Mt.Gox

bitcoin zindabad

i think it will still take some time to be a common currency

[omar]

The very first thing which will make some one to stop using bitcoin in India is downloading full block chain, which is in gigabytes.
Many ISP's give only 1-5 GB per month.
The time it takes to download block chain alone will upset users.

Use the Electrum wallet to avoid blockchain downloads. It's not very fancy, but it's very fast to get started.

http://electrum-desktop.com/

[dishwara]

The very first thing which will make some one to stop using bitcoin in India is downloading full block chain, which is in gigabytes.
Many ISP's give only 1-5 GB per month.
The time it takes to download block chain alone will upset users.

Use the Electrum wallet to avoid blockchain downloads. It's not very fancy, but it's very fast to get started.
http://electrum-desktop.com/

Its in alpha stage.
No one wants to try on beta software, & also that's the problem in original Bitcoin client. Its still in beta.

A money handling software, which can store, send, receive, safe...........which is beta, can be acceptable by common public?

[Benson Samuel]

While coinbase is also in Beta, It has my vote for a cloud based wallet that doesn't need the large download and is secure.

http://bensonsamuel.com/2012/10/24/bitcoin-gets-funded-by-ycombinator-interview-with-the-ceo-of-coinbase/

[dishwara]

While coinbase is also in Beta, It has my vote for a cloud based wallet that doesn't need the large download and is secure.

http://bensonsamuel.com/2012/10/24/bitcoin-gets-funded-by-ycombinator-interview-with-the-ceo-of-coinbase/

Hope they add India in their list.

[Stephen Gornick]

Anyone open to discuss Bitcoin stores in India? 1 or 2 in each major city, that will trade Bitcoin over a counter.

While not over-the-counter, there are two businesses - online pharmacy ecommerce sites, which are located in India:

First international online pharmacy accepting Bitcoin!
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83234.0
 - http://theswisspharmacy.com
 - http://theswisspharmacy.blogspot.com/2012/06/bitcoin-introduced-as-new-payment.html

Also:
 - http://www.eupillz.com

[dishwara]

Anyone open to discuss Bitcoin stores in India? 1 or 2 in each major city, that will trade Bitcoin over a counter.

While not over-the-counter, there are two businesses - online pharmacy ecommerce sites, which are located in India:

First international online pharmacy accepting Bitcoin!
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83234.0
 - http://theswisspharmacy.com
 - http://theswisspharmacy.blogspot.com/2012/06/bitcoin-introduced-as-new-payment.html

Also:
 - http://www.eupillz.com

I don't understand what is the use of companies website which not allowed & can't ship to India?

Also the WOT rating of http://www.eupillz.com is poor.

[Stephen Gornick]

I don't understand what is the use of companies website which not allowed & can't ship to India?

Heh, sorry.

They are located in India:

All orders are sent by our licensed partner from India.

 so I just assumed they would ship there as well.  I now see:

What countries do you not ship orders to?

Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
Germany
India
Iraq
Ireland
Lybia
Netherlands
Nigeria
North Korea
Norway
Pakistan
Portugal
Seychelles
Slovakia
Somalia
South Africa
Sweden
Switzerland

- http://www.theswisspharmacy.com/shop_content.php?coID=3

[Benson Samuel]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops

Need some pins on India as well for us to get a better idea of whats up.