Reserve Bank of India Anticipates Shift to P2P Crypto Trading

[avikz]

The Reserve Bank of India, published a 268-page annual report for financial year 2017-18 on August 28, 2018. A whole section of that report is dedicated towards cryptocurrency where they have outlined the risks posed by crypto and emphasized on the need to monitor crypto development in anticipation that some trading may shift from exchanges to peer-to-peer (P2P) mode.

The report says,

Developments on this front need to be monitored as some trading may shift from exchanges to peer-to-peer mode, which may also involve increased usage of cash. Possibilities of migration of crypto exchange houses to dark pools/cash and to offshore locations…require close watch.

The absence of information on counterparties in such peer-to-peer anonymous/pseudonymous systems could subject users to unintentional breaches of anti-money laundering laws (AML) as well as laws for combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).

In a nutshell, the "religious" government of India, will try to block the p2p market as well, the way they have banned "Bank to business" transactions in crypto space. Hard days are coming for Indians it seems!

News source: https://news.bitcoin.com/reserve-bank-of-india-p2p-crypto-trading/

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[Harlot]

Damn!!! India is slowly killing the cryptocurrency market in their country and I haven't seen the higher ups doing anything about, because it seems to me like the Reserve Bank of India is acting as if it is the head of the government of that country, also I haven't heard any updates regarding the news of their SC and its decision about the banks being prohibited on transacting with cryptocurrency exchanges. If I was part of their legislative assembly I think that I will intervene with their decisions by proposing a bill about cryptocurrencies and how to regulate them in India.

[magneto]

The Reserve Bank of India, published a 268-page annual report for financial year 2017-18 on August 28, 2018. A whole section of that report is dedicated towards cryptocurrency where they have outlined the risks posed by crypto and emphasized on the need to monitor crypto development in anticipation that some trading may shift from exchanges to peer-to-peer (P2P) mode.

The report says,

Developments on this front need to be monitored as some trading may shift from exchanges to peer-to-peer mode, which may also involve increased usage of cash. Possibilities of migration of crypto exchange houses to dark pools/cash and to offshore locations…require close watch.

The absence of information on counterparties in such peer-to-peer anonymous/pseudonymous systems could subject users to unintentional breaches of anti-money laundering laws (AML) as well as laws for combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).

In a nutshell, the "religious" government of India, will try to block the p2p market as well, the way they have banned "Bank to business" transactions in crypto space. Hard days are coming for Indians it seems!

News source: https://news.bitcoin.com/reserve-bank-of-india-p2p-crypto-trading/

They're completely right about the markets going to head into P2P mode as they make the attempt at restricting access to bitcoin and bitcoin businesses.

Their restrictions placed on banks so that they are not legally allowed to deal with bitcoin businesses is absurd. They are not accomplishing anything and they are driving crypto related businesses away from their country. So they're literally shooting themselves in the foot right now.

The government of India could try somehow restrict P2P trades from happening as well, but that is impossible. The thing is that these P2P trades will continue to happen, even outside of platforms like Localbitcoins. It's almost impossible to moderate and "crack down", as they like to do.

[Tapyaks72]

The Reserve Bank of India, published a 268-page annual report for financial year 2017-18 on August 28, 2018. A whole section of that report is dedicated towards cryptocurrency where they have outlined the risks posed by crypto and emphasized on the need to monitor crypto development in anticipation that some trading may shift from exchanges to peer-to-peer (P2P) mode.

The report says,

Developments on this front need to be monitored as some trading may shift from exchanges to peer-to-peer mode, which may also involve increased usage of cash. Possibilities of migration of crypto exchange houses to dark pools/cash and to offshore locations…require close watch.

The absence of information on counterparties in such peer-to-peer anonymous/pseudonymous systems could subject users to unintentional breaches of anti-money laundering laws (AML) as well as laws for combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).

In a nutshell, the "religious" government of India, will try to block the p2p market as well, the way they have banned "Bank to business" transactions in crypto space. Hard days are coming for Indians it seems!

News source: https://news.bitcoin.com/reserve-bank-of-india-p2p-crypto-trading/

They're completely right about the markets going to head into P2P mode as they make the attempt at restricting access to bitcoin and bitcoin businesses.

Their restrictions placed on banks so that they are not legally allowed to deal with bitcoin businesses is absurd. They are not accomplishing anything and they are driving crypto related businesses away from their country. So they're literally shooting themselves in the foot right now.

The government of India could try somehow restrict P2P trades from happening as well, but that is impossible. The thing is that these P2P trades will continue to happen, even outside of platforms like Localbitcoins. It's almost impossible to moderate and "crack down", as they like to do.

Crypto currency now fo sure threatened the stability of some financial institutions because it frighten, that they will loosed control over their financial situation in their countries, because P2P transaction will  surely, will most likely the edge in the financial world.

[Theb]

Their restrictions placed on banks so that they are not legally allowed to deal with bitcoin businesses is absurd. They are not accomplishing anything and they are driving crypto related businesses away from their country. So they're literally shooting themselves in the foot right now.

From the looks of it so far it seems like RBI is acting on its own or at least the way they showing it so far as their executive department is not intervening nor showing any signs that it will stop the RBI from doing memorandums against cryptocurrencies. The way I see it is that the RBI don't see cryptocurrencies in the picture of their future economy. Not unless some other branch of their government intervenes like the Supreme Court or Legislative department, RBI will act as if it was placed above other big branches of their government and this might hurt their economy for awhile.

[Snaic]

The Reserve Bank of India is just a bank, albeit a central bank. This is not the legislative body of the country and it will comply with the  laws, as well as government orders. Not so long ago, a special commission set up by the Government of India came to the conclusion that bitcoin and other crypto currency can be recognized as a means of payment. Even members of the special unit created by the Reserve Bank of the country to study crypto-currencies and their subsequent possible regulation express their opinion that the crypto-currency will most likely be recognized in India as a commodity. Therefore, I think that bitcoin and other crypto currency will soon be legalized in India.

[squatter]

Developments on this front need to be monitored as some trading may shift from exchanges to peer-to-peer mode, which may also involve increased usage of cash. Possibilities of migration of crypto exchange houses to dark pools/cash and to offshore locations…require close watch.

The absence of information on counterparties in such peer-to-peer anonymous/pseudonymous systems could subject users to unintentional breaches of anti-money laundering laws (AML) as well as laws for combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).

In a nutshell, the "religious" government of India, will try to block the p2p market as well, the way they have banned "Bank to business" transactions in crypto space. Hard days are coming for Indians it seems!

They can try, but as we've seen in China, it's pretty hopeless. After the largest Bitcoin exchanges were shut down in China, Localbitcoins volume skyrocketed and still remains much higher today than pre-2017.

Shutting down exchanges or banking onramps to exchanges only drives people towards P2P -- ironically, this is what Bitcoin was intended for.

[Harlot]

The Reserve Bank of India is just a bank, albeit a central bank. This is not the legislative body of the country and it will comply with the  laws, as well as government orders. Not so long ago, a special commission set up by the Government of India came to the conclusion that bitcoin and other crypto currency can be recognized as a means of payment. Even members of the special unit created by the Reserve Bank of the country to study crypto-currencies and their subsequent possible regulation express their opinion that the crypto-currency will most likely be recognized in India as a commodity. Therefore, I think that bitcoin and other crypto currency will soon be legalized in India.

Even though it is not a legislative body its memorandums and circulars are as good as a law as long as their orders are under their area it is allowable. The problem I see here is if bills takes time to be passed as a law the memorandums made by RBI can be in full effect instantly without even going to congress. This power for me is too much but the bright side is anyone who has a higher power can stop it namely the executive department or the legislative department even the judicial department can label their order as unconstitutional if they want to void the effect.

[Gozie51]

The India government should rather watch it and learn from China's experience after they thought that cryptocurrency would go down after they came up with banning news on icos last year.

In the case of India, they have already seen the danger of p2p transaction which will be very difficult to check. India has very few exchanges to start with, so localbitcoin will become the order of transaction there.

[1Referee]

After the largest Bitcoin exchanges were shut down in China, Localbitcoins volume skyrocketed and still remains much higher today than pre-2017.

The weird part is that Huobi and OKEx have never really been shut down in China. People there can still sign up and trade on these exchanges without using proxies. The only difference is that they just dropped CNY trading and have now gone all in on USDT (which allows Chinese citizens to easily bypass restritions).

Interesting stats;

26.2% of the visitors are Chinese https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/huobi.pro
25.9% of the visitors are Chinese https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/okex.com

Why doesn't China just add these two exchanges to their great firewall black list? I strongly suspect that there is some faul play going on here, all to let these two exchanges (which have always been notorious) yet again become the dominant force in the crypto space.

[jseverson]

I wish India luck in monitoring peer-to-peer transactions lmao. Why the hostility anyway? It's not like crypto has been very popular there. It just seems like their central bank has some vendetta against crypto. Would this have something to do with it?

Why doesn't China just add these two exchanges to their great firewall black list? I strongly suspect that there is some faul play going on here, all to let these two exchanges (which have always been notorious) yet again become the dominant force in the crypto space.

They seem to be working around the ban by pivoting to over-the-counter services:

In the meantime, CNR said the exchange has continued to offer over-the-counter (OTC) trading that makes cryptocurrency buying and selling available for investors from mainland China.

Huobi is doing the same thing I believe.

[squatter]

After the largest Bitcoin exchanges were shut down in China, Localbitcoins volume skyrocketed and still remains much higher today than pre-2017.

The weird part is that Huobi and OKEx have never really been shut down in China. People there can still sign up and trade on these exchanges without using proxies. The only difference is that they just dropped CNY trading and have now gone all in on USDT (which allows Chinese citizens to easily bypass restritions).

I'm surprised they weren't blocked -- I thought I heard otherwise months ago. I suppose they also moved operations outside of mainland China (to Hong Kong and Singapore). I guess dropping CNY pairs sort of shows the real concern -- capital flight. Cutting off large centralized exchanges from the CNY banking system and forcing traffic to smaller exchanges and P2P probably cut the volume down a lot.

Why doesn't China just add these two exchanges to their great firewall black list? I strongly suspect that there is some faul play going on here, all to let these two exchanges (which have always been notorious) yet again become the dominant force in the crypto space.

Would blacklisting them make much of a difference? Chinese people seem pretty savvy at getting around the firewall.

[jseverson]

Why doesn't China just add these two exchanges to their great firewall black list? I strongly suspect that there is some faul play going on here, all to let these two exchanges (which have always been notorious) yet again become the dominant force in the crypto space.

Would blacklisting them make much of a difference? Chinese people seem pretty savvy at getting around the firewall.

I could be wrong, but he seems to be implying that the Chinese government could somehow be in cahoots with the exchanges because it's suspicious how they've been allowed back into China and are flourishing.

But yeah, VPNs are so cheap (and could be bought with Bitcoin anonymously to boot) that anyone can really bypass any site blacklist and throw off surveillance. Just another reason why India's P2P crackdown won't get anywhere.

[squatter]

I could be wrong, but he seems to be implying that the Chinese government could somehow be in cahoots with the exchanges because it's suspicious how they've been allowed back into China and are flourishing.

I don't think they've been allowed back. They both moved operations outside of the country and they don't interact with CNY. They still obviously target the Chinese market, but they do so as an offshore exchange. Huobi just launched a US-facing exchange (HBUS) and an OTC trading platform in India, which I think shows they're trying to tap new markets rather than old ones.

I sometimes think the Chinese government is just becoming cognizant of how little control they have in this situation.

[timerland]

Yeah, they've finally realized why banning banks from dealing with exchanges was a completely useless move, and will only hurt themselves in the future.

The consequences of that ban was obvious from the get go, because I've said this since the ban came out that people are simply going to switch over to P2P trading. I really can't believe that they've only started to report on this matter now.

Even though they recognize this now, there is no way of stopping it. Bitcoin is here for a reason, because it's decentralized and can't be shut down. P2P trades are completely outside of the government's control, unless they monitor every single citizen's daily activities, somehow get rid of all payment processors as well as cash, which is impossible. The logical thing imo is to remove the sanctions on crypto, and move to implementing some actual positive regulations.

[buwaytress]

You'd think governments would learn. China's crypto ban that instantly turned Wechat and Telegram into P2P channels. Iran's clampdown that made people Localbitcoin traders overnight. Exchanges shipping out of India to do business elsewhere.

What makes them think they have the resources to chase down P2P Bitcoin trades when they have a huge backlog of enforcement issues on non-digital finance? And even if they reprioritised resources, what makes them think they can stamp it out? If only 1% of Indians use crypto, and only 1% of users are traders, that's 100k people to look out for, and growing.

Think numbers, India!

[magneto]

You'd think governments would learn. China's crypto ban that instantly turned Wechat and Telegram into P2P channels. Iran's clampdown that made people Localbitcoin traders overnight. Exchanges shipping out of India to do business elsewhere.

What makes them think they have the resources to chase down P2P Bitcoin trades when they have a huge backlog of enforcement issues on non-digital finance? And even if they reprioritised resources, what makes them think they can stamp it out? If only 1% of Indians use crypto, and only 1% of users are traders, that's 100k people to look out for, and growing.

Think numbers, India!

Exactly. At least China has a pretty cashless society by now (which India isn't close to being) and even then it is hard to enforce their ban on exchanges and bitcoin trading, simply because they can't just monitor everyone in the country that has a Wechat or Alipay account and say for certain that a person is definitely trading crypto.

They'd have to invest huge amounts of time and energy which at the end of the day, won't even accomplish anything as people may even just revert back to cash or simply trade more discreetly.

I don't know why India did this. They could have regulated the crypto economy but instead, decided to sanction it completely. And now to enforce it, they'd have to invest hugely into it financially. I really think that they only thought of this now, and didn't foresee P2P to be a big threat when they first restricted banks from dealing with crypto entities. There's a reason why bitcoin is so resilient, it's a P2P currency, without a central entity. Which means that trading can always move to different venues as no one can shut the entire network down.

[Kemarit]

You'd think governments would learn. China's crypto ban that instantly turned Wechat and Telegram into P2P channels. Iran's clampdown that made people Localbitcoin traders overnight. Exchanges shipping out of India to do business elsewhere.

Its because its their number 1 goal. To stop crypto as all cost but government doesn't realized is that its really unstoppable at this point. Bitcoin although in the bearish trend, is still going strong and because its decentralized, individuals will always find a way to continue their trading activity, slipping out of government's radar.

What makes them think they have the resources to chase down P2P Bitcoin trades when they have a huge backlog of enforcement issues on non-digital finance? And even if they reprioritised resources, what makes them think they can stamp it out? If only 1% of Indians use crypto, and only 1% of users are traders, that's 100k people to look out for, and growing.

Think numbers, India!

So its going to be a continues battle for them to chase the last bitcoin traders in India pooling all their resources but at the end of the day, the government will end up with nothing. They have more pressing issue to deal with, so its either they regulate and join the crypto sphere or chase shadows.

[avikz]

I recently stumbled up on a tweet made by Indian Information Technology Minister Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad on 15 September 2018. He emphasized on the increased numbers of IMPS payments in India. IMPS means, Immediate Mobile Payment Service which settles the fund in real time unlike NEFT payment system. Some people are linking the increase with the p2p crypto trading and that probably is true! Majority of the trade I do in localbitcoins, is in IMPS.

Tweet link: https://twitter.com/rsprasad/status/1040943127878557696



I wonder what they can do next to curb the p2p trading model! What kind of ban they will be planning right at this moment! Any thoughts??