INDIA: Draft Law Proposes 10-year Jail Term for Dealing in Cryptocurrency

[kanmo]

The government of India has been giving its citizens tough time when it comes to trading of cryptocurrency. I think in the future, the government will realize the importance of crypto in its economy and embrace it. The 10 years jail term is a serious one in India for now but with time I think government will compromise its decision on this.

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[rizkyhiw]

I think those who have been holding Bitcoin for longer and are now encouraged to use coins that they make themselves and that won't guarantee it will be good for them because people are smart and may prefer Bitcoin as their future investment and the coins they build for being the umpteenth time, indeed the effect will be felt when India becomes the holder of many things and now it is only banned but this is not something sad but we must believe in the future, it seems like all will be friendly to Bitcoin

[peter0425]

And just like that,

https://beincrypto.com/78-arrested-indian-bitcoin-call-center-scam/

78 Arrested in Indian Bitcoin Call Center Scam

A fraudulent group of call centers, which targeted U.S. citizens, has been shut down by Indian authorities. The entity was extorting American citizens by demanding Bitcoin (BTC) and other forms of online payment under threats of releasing private information.

So they have started to clamp down and hunt criminals that deals with bitcoin. So let's see how they are going to run for crypto enthusiast though.

[Twinkledoe]

And just like that,

https://beincrypto.com/78-arrested-indian-bitcoin-call-center-scam/

78 Arrested in Indian Bitcoin Call Center Scam

A fraudulent group of call centers, which targeted U.S. citizens, has been shut down by Indian authorities. The entity was extorting American citizens by demanding Bitcoin (BTC) and other forms of online payment under threats of releasing private information.

So they have started to clamp down and hunt criminals that deals with bitcoin. So let's see how they are going to run for crypto enthusiast though.

Maybe the draft law came into life because of these fraudulent activities relating to crypto projects. However, they don't consider the good impact to other crypto enthusiasts who are not into scamming people. We will see how far they can pin down those scammers but they should have exclusion to this law. Those who are doing legal terms towards blockchain projects.

[Shenzou]

Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.

Holding, selling or dealing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin could soon land you in jail for 10 years.

The "Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019" draft has proposed 10-year prison sentence for persons who "mine, generate, hold, sell, transfer, dispose, issue or deal in cryptocurrencies.

Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security and is generally based on blockchain technology, a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in the world.

Given the high chances of cryptocurrencies being misused for money laundering, various government bodies such as the Income Tax Department and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had endorsed banning of cryptocurrencies.

The draft bill for banning cryptocurrency has been in the works for some time with Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg leading the exercise.

While strict law would soon be in place to deal with people indulging in trade of cryptocurrency, India is likely to have its own digital currency.

"A decision on the launch of Digital Rupee would be taken after consulting the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)"

said an official.

How do you Indian folks deal with this?
Draft Law Proposes 10-year Jail Term for Dealing in Cryptocurrency

As you said this is a draft law, so nothing is official and i personally think that there is no way that the government will allow to sentence people to 10 years of jail for such so small act, the sentence is higher than caught a person with position of drugs, however if this gets approved it will not be just bad for the people who are living in there and use crypto but it will show how much the government is dictating people and what they do with their lives and their money.

[FlightyPouch]

I don't know what push them or what they are thinking about banning crypto currency that it is so serious you can be jailed for 10 years. Though I can't do anything about it so instead of arguing about it, let's just hope that it will not be regulated. There might not be that many crypto users in terms of other country but that can still affect the market.

[pinkpanther03]

I read the news article about this draft law in India. This is the problem in countries with very weak laws and implementations tat track down illegal money. They're targeting new resources that might be one way to do money laundering, that is cryptocurrency.

[fiulpro]

Changing your country is a bit more weird but you know if your income is based on Bitcoins you should do that , Just kidding , just change your VPN guys.

Use some programming , befriend hackers ! , Learn to be better than the government officials itself, trust me there are loop holes every where literally , use that .

First thing it's just a draft , thus don't worry , for passing it may take a while thus we do have time to decide what to do and what not to do.

[Vishnu.Reang]

And just like that,

https://beincrypto.com/78-arrested-indian-bitcoin-call-center-scam/

78 Arrested in Indian Bitcoin Call Center Scam

A fraudulent group of call centers, which targeted U.S. citizens, has been shut down by Indian authorities. The entity was extorting American citizens by demanding Bitcoin (BTC) and other forms of online payment under threats of releasing private information.

So they have started to clamp down and hunt criminals that deals with bitcoin. So let's see how they are going to run for crypto enthusiast though.

Read the article in full and you will get a better idea about it. These guys were blackmailing American citizens after pretending themselves to be from the IRS. They were arrested for that and not for using  Bitcoin. They extorted money out of American nationals and converted the money in to BTC for the ease of transferring to the Indian accounts.

[bitcoindusts]

Sad news for Indian friends who make cryptocurrencies sources of their income. Theres a lot of Indian individuals that are in crypto. I wonder what would be the purpose of their would be Crypto Rupee if they will not eliminate paper Rupee totally. The government must want to clean the country of any other cryptocurrency to circulate before they launch  their own. 

[guoyu78]

Lol…. Are you really sure about this news 'cause there are a lot of people in India that are still making use of Bitcoin. Unless they are all hiding their address or something like that to be able to make use of Bitcoin and avoid being caught by the government. And I don't think the government will be able to tell that you're making use cryptocurrency unless they go through your mobile phone or through your computer and they see that you have a cryptocurrency wallet. Then another way is when you withdraw money from a cryptocurrency exchange and they are able to trace that it was coming from an exchange, then they will come for you.

[Sithara007]

Sad news for Indian friends who make cryptocurrencies sources of their income. Theres a lot of Indian individuals that are in crypto. I wonder what would be the purpose of their would be Crypto Rupee if they will not eliminate paper Rupee totally. The government must want to clean the country of any other cryptocurrency to circulate before they launch  their own. 

India is not a very rich country, and a large portion of the population lead a hand-to-mouth existence. For millions of such people, cryptocurrencies are the source of passive income or additional income. You may not believe this, but an amount as small as $30 per month can make a lot of difference to many Indians. It is sad that the government is taking away this opportunity from such people.

[thehun]

I don't believe such a law will ever come into effect. Regulation? yes, for sure. Total prohibition? No way, no government would shoot itself in its legs in such a manner, especially a country that has so many talented tech developers as India and can profit so much from the Blockchain revolution.

[virasog]

The government of India has been giving its citizens tough time when it comes to trading of cryptocurrency. I think in the future, the government will realize the importance of crypto in its economy and embrace it. The 10 years jail term is a serious one in India for now but with time I think government will compromise its decision on this.

I think this is a wrong decision by the government of India. I am not sure if its just a proposal or this law has been implemented. Whatever is the case, this will give negative message to the people who are dealing in bitcoins and crypto. People may find a back door if the government implements this and ban the bitcoins.

[Sithara007]

I think this is a wrong decision by the government of India. I am not sure if its just a proposal or this law has been implemented. Whatever is the case, this will give negative message to the people who are dealing in bitcoins and crypto. People may find a back door if the government implements this and ban the bitcoins.

I am a resident of India, and this is a draft proposal which is about to be tabled in the parliament. The parliament summer session started from yesterday onward and we can expect this bill to be tabled at the lower hosue anytime soon. The government has been giving "negative messages" to cryptocurrency users for quite long. Back in 2014, they issued a warning saying that Bitcoin is a ponzi and everyone should stay away. When no one listened to them, they started threatening the users.

[barbara44]

Is it just me? The news about this seems have a less impact or doesn't have at all. Maybe because it's India, a 3rd world country. I don't feel the impact and there's no major talk like, others are panicking or something like that and it seems they aren't worrying. Well, I won't be surprised though.

Yeah, just as nobody panicked when the first news about the ban spread.

And the reasons are not just because it's a 3rd world country its because there is no volume on the exchanges, there are no shops accepting, no ATMs, no nodes, no mining, ...basically, nothing that can be considered. There are countries in Europe /100 of the size in both population or GDP but which have a far bigger impact on the crypto environment.

Imagine one of the countries in EU seeking a ban...everyone will panic as they would fear the ban would spread to the largest economy in the world which is the union. India...meh..

Another reason for the lack of reactions is that even if its adoption or banning people know India's government will do a shitty job at it and the results will b equal to zero, so no real change whatsoever

Maybe you are right because India is a third-world country, but look at what happened to Bitcoin when China released a news like this.

.

India is not China. Not even close. Not even a thousand miles close.
 

You know the confidence that people have in cryptocurrency? It is fact that it is an anonymous coin, and whatever transaction goes through it cannot be traced, so people are still not scared of using it even when such pronunciation is made by any of those great countries.

Did china too not make a pronouncement recently as regards banning miners from their country which I think they did, yet, there was no little effect of it on the market and people are still going about their crypto business as if china never exist, so right now, I don’t think there will be any FUD news like ban or whatsoever that will ever out an end to crypto.

[btc_angela]

And just like that,

https://beincrypto.com/78-arrested-indian-bitcoin-call-center-scam/

78 Arrested in Indian Bitcoin Call Center Scam

A fraudulent group of call centers, which targeted U.S. citizens, has been shut down by Indian authorities. The entity was extorting American citizens by demanding Bitcoin (BTC) and other forms of online payment under threats of releasing private information.

So they have started to clamp down and hunt criminals that deals with bitcoin. So let's see how they are going to run for crypto enthusiast though.

Maybe the draft law came into life because of these fraudulent activities relating to crypto projects. However, they don't consider the good impact to other crypto enthusiasts who are not into scamming people. We will see how far they can pin down those scammers but they should have exclusion to this law. Those who are doing legal terms towards blockchain projects.

Yes, I agree. This might be one reason why Indian government drafted a harsher punishment because there are Indian's who uses crypto in a bad way just like what @peter0425 posted above. It's really sad to see India suddenly made a U-turn for the worst, but we can't do anything about the government's decision here.

[wxa7115]

Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.

Holding, selling or dealing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin could soon land you in jail for 10 years.

The "Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019" draft has proposed 10-year prison sentence for persons who "mine, generate, hold, sell, transfer, dispose, issue or deal in cryptocurrencies.

Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security and is generally based on blockchain technology, a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers. Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in the world.

Given the high chances of cryptocurrencies being misused for money laundering, various government bodies such as the Income Tax Department and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had endorsed banning of cryptocurrencies.

The draft bill for banning cryptocurrency has been in the works for some time with Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg leading the exercise.

While strict law would soon be in place to deal with people indulging in trade of cryptocurrency, India is likely to have its own digital currency.

"A decision on the launch of Digital Rupee would be taken after consulting the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)"

said an official.

How do you Indian folks deal with this?

Draft Law Proposes 10-year Jail Term for Dealing in Cryptocurrency

I am not surprised by this, governments are realizing that bitcoin is not a fad or something that is going to be quickly forgotten and they are getting worried, so the government of India is attacking cryptocurrencies from two directions, first they make it illegal so people are afraid of dealing with it or accepting it and then they create a substitute that will be completely controlled by them for those that are dumb enough to think that a coin backed by a government is a good thing.

But as long as the economic reasons for bitcoin to exist remain such a ban will fail and if things get as bad as some people believe when an economic crisis appears you can be sure that people will chose to disobey the law.

[Sithara007]

Yes, I agree. This might be one reason why Indian government drafted a harsher punishment because there are Indian's who uses crypto in a bad way just like what @peter0425 posted above. It's really sad to see India suddenly made a U-turn for the worst, but we can't do anything about the government's decision here.

This is a very stupid argument. If the real intention was to reduce the number of crypto-related scams and ponzis, then the government should have regulated the market and legalized the cryptocurrencies. Now by banning crypto, they are forcing the users to go underground and the incidence of scamming are likely to increase by manifold. And what makes the Indian government different, when the fact remains that most of the countries around the world (Germany, Japan, United States.etc) have legalized cryptocurrency?

[jostorres]

Changing your country is a bit more weird but you know if your income is based on Bitcoins you should do that , Just kidding , just change your VPN guys.

Use some programming , befriend hackers ! , Learn to be better than the government officials itself, trust me there are loop holes every where literally , use that .

First thing it's just a draft , thus don't worry , for passing it may take a while thus we do have time to decide what to do and what not to do.

These guys are smarter than you think. I studied programming in India, one of their technology institutes, and you need to feel and see the level they have gone when it comes to computer programming, so this is really not a threat to them. They have lots of educated people and most of them are IT inclined which is what cryptocurrency user requires.

Their population is very high for government to even feel that cryptocurrency will disturb them, because in as much as we have those who have computer knowledge to the deep, we have many of their citizens that are still not exposed, in which they are much more enough to continue to make their FIAT relevant, so Indian government should really not worry, crypto market only need 10 percent of their population to survive lol.