[2018-04-23] - India Divided on Whether to Ban Crypto Use

[Hannahanto]

As India works on the bill to regulate cryptocurrencies, each government department has its own opinion on whether to ban the use of crypto, including bitcoin. The Finance Ministry, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Income Tax Department, and the Special Investigation Team have voiced their opinions on the upcoming bill.

https://news.bitcoin.com/india-divided-ban-crypto-use/

India is preparing a bill on the regulation of cryptocurrency. “The bill has been drafted and consultation has been started with the concerned agency,” the Navbharat Times reported last week. The news outlet quoted sources explaining that the regulators are divided on whether to ban the use of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

“The finance ministry is in favor of regulating [cryptocurrency],” sources said. The Income Tax Department, on the contrary, is not in favor of regulation, the news outlet conveyed, and quoted sources explaining:

The regulation of virtual currency is almost impossible and it promotes the use of black money.

Your thoughts on it dudes?

[jjacob]

They may be divided on how to deal with it and hence they have adopted the safest approach - do nothing. The RBI has been warning people about the dangers of cryptocurrencies for years and finally decided to force exchanges into a corner, by cutting their banking links. The government agencies have been debating for years...

[pkhutal]

As India works on the bill to regulate cryptocurrencies, each government department has its own opinion on whether to ban the use of crypto, including bitcoin. The Finance Ministry, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Income Tax Department, and the Special Investigation Team have voiced their opinions on the upcoming bill.

https://news.bitcoin.com/india-divided-ban-crypto-use/

India is preparing a bill on the regulation of cryptocurrency. “The bill has been drafted and consultation has been started with the concerned agency,” the Navbharat Times reported last week. The news outlet quoted sources explaining that the regulators are divided on whether to ban the use of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.

“The finance ministry is in favor of regulating [cryptocurrency],” sources said. The Income Tax Department, on the contrary, is not in favor of regulation, the news outlet conveyed, and quoted sources explaining:

The regulation of virtual currency is almost impossible and it promotes the use of black money.

Your thoughts on it dudes?

Yes, looking at current status India it seems government will not promote Crypto Currency as legal tender.

Interesting thing is that "BlockChain is legal in India but Crypto Currency or Tokens is not regulated (Sort of Illegal)". I guess the regulatory bodies have very less knowledge of "BlockChain Technology". In BlockChain, Decentralized Computers  solve the mathematical problems and in return they are rewarded with Tokens i.e Mining Rewards. Now if i cannot extract the Value out of tokens, why i will do the Mining?

Few projects have been started like saving land records, but they are on private blockhain. "Private BlockChains" are regulated by governments, then i can do similar things in centralized system with multiple copies of data.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-anti-cryptocurreny-love-blockchain-wrong-virat-khutal/ address the same problem.

We have South-East Asia BlockChain summit on 12 May 2018, just go through the list of speakers. All the Crypto Top peoples are visiting but "Token and CryptoCurrency are not regulated". Lets hope something better would comeup with this event.

Thanks.

[iram1011]

RBI thinks that they have taken a shrewdest move by not clearing any stance on cryptocurrency and just banning the payment gateways. But most of the big crypto trades are P2P and also by not making crypto legal or regulating it and banning the banks from supporting transactions,  they have given people the option to go the cash way and hence people can hide their incomes easily and this gonna boost the money laundering more. At least, before they were able to keep a tab over bank transactions. Thus, I think goverment is likely to come with regulations.

Yes, looking at current status India it seems government will not promote Crypto Currency as legal tender.

Bitcoin is hardly a legal tender in any country in the world. Most of the countries are regulating it as a property and asset is not being used a as a currency except Japan. So Bitcoin becoming a legal tender in India is out of the scope.

[Betwrong]

It's actually a good thing that there is no consensus among the regulators. It looks like the Income Tax Department of India and the Indian Special Investigation Team (SIT) show more hostile approaches than others, but at least not everyone in the government departments is against cryptocurrencies. Hopefully, and I truly believe in that, the progressive forces will prevail.

[Kemarit]

Isn't it that they have been debating about it for years? But its seems that they are still divided which means that India is still in the gray area as far as I'm concern. But if you think that they are going to make it a legal tender, I doubt that they will do such move though. However, regulating it is more practical and its a win-win situation for both parties (government and their people). Blockchain technology is different though, that's the ironic part, banks around the world fell in love with it but they hate bitcoin and crypto in general.