How Do We Serve India, 1/5th of the Global Population, with Bitcoin?

[infonetenergy]

There's 1,241,491,960 people who live in India, that's almost 1/5th of the global population.  I am quite interested in learning more from all of you in this forum about how we can go about building the Indian Bitcoin Economy.  

A few of us have been working at lining up strategic partnerships with key enabling leaders in the bitcoin market such as BitPay.  For all of us living in India, it's clear that the biggest bottleneck is the exchange.  I have reached out to Mt. Gox to find out why they haven't started in India, still waiting for a response.  In the meantime, I have started using companies like buysellbitco.in to purchase bitcoins, seems to be working...for now.  

Now that Avalon has proved that ASICs are for real, I am also open to mining bitcoins here in India (electricity is fairly cheap).  We could use some help in terms of crowd-sourcing initial start-up funds, etc.  

I am reaching out to those who have experienced success from around the world with seeding bitcoin in their respective communities.  What do you recommend as a next step?

Please give us your feedback on www.IndiaBitcoin.com  

[imanikin]

I think the bottleneck is not exchanges in India. If i remember right, the TradeHill exchange offered Rupee trade, and didn't do much business in it.

(If i had to guess, i think the bottleneck in India might be the traditional Indian affinity to gold. Might be the same in China. Just my guess, of course.)

In any case, i think you are fortunate not to have an exchange, because i bet we might see some government "nationalize" an exchange in some country. A lot of people will lose their bitcoin and cash, if and where that happens. Maybe it will be MtGox, which would be fun! 

Your country exports a lot of services that are perfect to sell for bitcoin, such as IT services. You have a lot of other goods exporters that ship to countries that mine and have exchanges. For example, see if you can get Indian food store distributors in the US  pay with Bitcoin for goods they get from India.

Once those people can get bitcoin for their goods and services, they can spend it in India on whatever. The next recipients in India will then be able to spend it locally in India on something else, and so on...

Seems a lot safer and less troublesome than converting it to Rupee and back, and paying all kinds of middlemen, such as exchangers.

Maybe create and Indian section on Bitmit as a start.

In India, i think Bitcoin growth will require extra patience. Good luck!

[Benson Samuel]

The Exchange is hardly a problem for India anymore.

Buysellbitco.in & Weexchange.co accept INR to sell Bitcoin.

Weexchange is not yet 100% live, but the person who is rolling out the service had mailed me to inform that INR will be accepted.

I am aware of a few more initiatives that will be launched by June which will completely solve the problem of Exchanges.

What we really need is a way to conduct international business without getting the person to realize that they are receiving Bitcoins.
It will have to be seamless Bitcoin to INR processing and I do believe that IndiaBitcoins is sorting this out as well by working with BitPay.

The bottleneck in India is that 97% of the users prefer cash. This can be attributed to the poor infrastructure/ availability of POS equipment.

I was unable to pay by Credit Card at a large Coffee Outlet last week as their POS machines were not working and this happens a lot. Due to these problems, most of us collect cash at an ATM before entering a store, even if they have non-cash based payment methods.

Building Bitcoin in a manner that mimics Fiat while improving on it is very important in order for Indians to embrace this technology quickly.

While IT/ ITES will be a huge part of this economy, The millions of Export companies are the biggest market for Bitcoin in India.
Software/ Goods Exports are huge.

[spndr7]

Lottery and betting on cricket matches are favourite time pass of many in India. This could propel bitcoin widely.

[RodeoX]

Tell people in India that they can buy gold abroad with BTC. My Indian friends tell me Indians love gold.

[Pinwheel]

good idea, I purchased gold from Coinabul once, passed custom no problem.

[NilamDoc]

Real Bitcoin. http://rbitco.in has been launched in India.

It offers these services:

• Buy/Sell
• Transact
• Vanity Address
• Interest on deposits
• Referral program
• Referral sign in and usage
• Messaging
• Monthly account settlement
• Deposit / Withdrawal

Other new services are likely to be enabled soon. It uses SSL and is very secure.

[Pinwheel]

thanks for putting up that hard work, best wishes to you!!

[luckyindia]

http://Hai Sunny.....ur zeal and enthusiasm needs to be appreciated.Everyday lakhs of Indians convert rupees into $, £, €, ¥ and other foreign currencies for purchasing, selling various goods and services from different countries.Various restrictive measures have been done away with. Our economy is opened and liberalised.Tie up with trade bodies.

[NilamDoc]

I have created an application to promote bitcoin on mobile devices, which can cater to Indian population at large. The only problem which I am facing is the transaction fees. I discussed with Gavin about it. He will be considering in the next meeting with the core group about it.

If any one would like to test the application please contact me personally on nilam@rbitco.in

[Benson Samuel]

Nilam, are you using bitcoind for your backend?
This should allow you to set your own transaction fees.
paytxfee=0.01

If you are using blockchain.info's api, that allows it as well.

[NilamDoc]

I used the api and the transaction fees comes out to 0.001 i.e. Rs 2.4 per transaction at the current exchange rates. I am working out to reduce the transaction rate by clubbing in the transactions in a block (not sure, if I will succeed).

But, the problem is when the exchange rates go still higher up, the transaction charges in INR will go up.

[Benson Samuel]

I used the api and the transaction fees comes out to 0.001 i.e. Rs 2.4 per transaction at the current exchange rates. I am working out to reduce the transaction rate by clubbing in the transactions in a block (not sure, if I will succeed).

But, the problem is when the exchange rates go still higher up, the transaction charges in INR will go up.

You could run a cron job to batch off payments once the confirmations have been received. Its the easiest way to do this with blockchain.info.

Then use the clubbing payments api to run a script to send out the payments. Set the transaction threshold and you end up with a very low transaction fee per user.

[NilamDoc]

Thanks, Benson. I will be testing the bulk sending to many addresses this weekend with a cronjob.

[Luno]

An obvious Bitcoin market in India would be money transfer from relatives in the UK and US. Indian traditional banking's handling of cheques and transfers is sketchy and corrupt. Money often get lost on the way.

If Bitcoin is marketed as the fast safe reliable alternative You'll get more customers than you can handle.

Maybe Bitcoin can also be the preferred method of payment for companies managing outsourced workers in India?

You need to hit some doorbells and get business contacts, just setting up services on-line is only half the work.

[vagabond911]

I think we need to create more exchanges in India, the Buy - Sell spread is currently so huge that no one in the country is willing to buy/exchange Bitcoins. And as E-commerce is still only a budding industry in the country not many proprietors accept Bitcoins for goods.

Here is an Interesting page I found, Looks like We can use this page to create awareness and spread the word. https://www.facebook.com/BitcoinIndia

[Benson Samuel]

https://www.facebook.com/IndiaBitcoin

[Stephen Gornick]

I would like to add funds to my account at Milap.

I can add funds by redeeming a gift certificate.  

The gift certificate can be purchased by anybody, using INR either through Indian credit card or through Netbanking:
 - http://fundraiser.milaap.org/fundraisers/76#  <-- Click Contribute, then enter your name, e-mail, city and country.  
Then choose Currency INR and enter N,NNNN Rs. enter "Water" for Cause.

I'm looking for a 1,500rs gift certificate. 

Is anyone looking to convert their debit card (INR), credit card (INR) or NetTransfer (INR) for Bitcoins?   If so, PM me please.

[Amitabh S]

Did you get any takers yet? If not I'll do it.

[vishnu]

I would like to add funds to my account at Milap.

I can add funds by redeeming a gift certificate.  

The gift certificate can be purchased by anybody, using INR either through Indian credit card or through Netbanking:
 - http://fundraiser.milaap.org/fundraisers/76#  <-- Click Contribute, then enter your name, e-mail, city and country.  
Then choose Currency INR and enter N,NNNN Rs. enter "Water" for Cause.

I'm looking for a 1,500rs gift certificate. 

Is anyone looking to convert their debit card (INR), credit card (INR) or NetTransfer (INR) for Bitcoins?   If so, PM me please.

Hi Gornick,

I would like to buy u the gift certificate in exchange for BTC. How many BTC will u send??

And how does this work i buy the gift certificate and send it to u??