[2017-05-26] ET: Bitcoin can be misused for black money and financing terror

Bitcoin can be misused for cycling black money and financing terror, warn House panel MPs

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bitcoin-can-be-misused-for-cycling-black-money-and-financing-terror-warn-house-panel-mps/articleshow/58862782.cms

A meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance on Thursday saw many members across the political divide razing questions about the Bitcoin mode of financial transactions. Members feared that it could become a parallel instrument for cycling black money and dodgy transactions and also a source for terror financing, sources said. MPs also cautioned the finance ministry officials present at the meeting against any move to legalise Bitcoin and wanted the government to look into the vulnerability of this instrument.

Sources said BJP member Kirit Somaiya raised a series of questions about Bitcoin and asked the officials why the government was being ambivalent about this instrument, neither clarifying whether it was a legally permissible instrument or not. He is also learnt to have demanded to know whether officials are properly briefing the prime minister about the flipside of this instrument. While expressing similar concerns Trinamool Congress member Dinesh Trivedi, according to sources, said “today data is the new oil and Bitcoin is the ransom finance platform.”