The India factor (i.e., when is India going to wake up to Bitcoin?)

[chriswilmer]

Given India's population and relatively low bitcoin usage, it's per capita usage of bitcoin must be one of the lowest in the world. What gives?

Look at the number of downloads of the bitcoin-qt client over the past year. India is ranked 17th (again, surprising given the size of the country)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/stats/map?dates=2012-06-01+to+2013-06-07

What are the factors that hinder adoption/interest in India and when will that change?

[desired_username]

Given India's population and relatively low bitcoin usage, it's per capita usage of bitcoin must be one of the lowest in the world. What gives?

Look at the number of downloads of the bitcoin-qt client over the past year. India is ranked 17th (again, surprising given the size of the country)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/stats/map?dates=2012-06-01+to+2013-06-07

What are the factors that hinder adoption/interest in India and when will that change?

Considering that people in India are very poor, I don't think that adoption will be fast there. Lack of infrastructure, education, etc are all slowing BTC adoption.

[BitcoinAshley]

Tradition is a big factor. Indians already have their hedge against fiat - it's gold. And they're buying lots of it at the moment, so much so that their government is concerned about the trade deficit of their currency vs. gold.

[Le Happy Merchant]

Considering that people in India are very poor,

Generalization is a dangerous game.

[lucas.sev]

Getting bitcoins in UK is incredibly hard, if you don't count overpriced localbitcoins, I can't imagine how it is in India.

[djalexr]

Getting bitcoins in UK is incredibly hard, if you don't count overpriced localbitcoins, I can't imagine how it is in India.

i can't say much about how hard it is to get bitcoins in india, but I wouldn't say localbitcoins in the UK is overpriced at the moment, prices have come way down and pretty much follow mt.gox now, and sometimes even cheaper (though it did used to be around £10 extra per coin!)

[goxed]

India is always late to the race usually. They might pick up BTC when it's already mainstream elsewhere especially in China.

[rezurect]

btc trades are are done via the subforum and local bitcoins, prices are about 5-10% higher than gox.
Amazon started its .in domain for India around June 4th,  it only offers books and movies, maybe when they offer bitcoin as a transaction method, the online community in India might adopt it. Other than that i don't see much scope for adoption in the short term, until some service like  Ripple (for INR to USD/BTC conversion ) comes along. The community is small and a look at the hashrates on a btcguild teamindia might give a slight idea mining currently taking place.
Cellphones have greater penetration in India than the Internet. Mobile payment services could really boost adoption.
The lack of an exchange supporting INR is the biggest hurdle in the short term for those already active in the community.

[Jaroslaw]

First China, now India what next ? Brasil ?

[molecular]

Getting bitcoins in UK is incredibly hard, if you don't count overpriced localbitcoins, I can't imagine how it is in India.

This sounds like an opportunity.

[lucas.sev]

Getting bitcoins in UK is incredibly hard, if you don't count overpriced localbitcoins, I can't imagine how it is in India.

This sounds like an opportunity.

It was easy once, mtgox had an accout in a british bank, but they have closed it.