Indian government appointed committee proposed draft bill might get approved

[pakhitheboss]

Today the Inter-Ministerial committee responsible to decide the fate of Cryptocurrency in India uploaded the draft bill(that termed banning of cryptocurrency in India with 10 years of Jail) to DEA (department of economic offense) ministeries website. Link to the website - https://dea.gov.in/

What does it mean?

The current session of Indian parliament runs till the 26th of July (EXTENDED TILL 06/08/2019). Most probably this draft bill will go through the parliament within this session or till the next session. But, it may become a bill.

What can Indian crypto holders do?

I did find some information regarding passing a bill through the Indian parliament. Read it and found that there are three stages through which a bill has to pass in one House of Parliament. In India, there are two houses of Parlament. You can read more here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawmaking_procedure_in_India?fbclid=IwAR3x_Wbb53WnCkFKM3i7_kMJVjftfJt4EuwOPb2sD4qBloIi7VZfbjUjNxg

This is what the law says, I request the Indian crypto community to hold till the 26th of this month, as it is the last day of parliament and then decide. Please do not take any hasty decision.

EDITED - As some members have complained that the link is not correct. I would like to make them aware that the first link is directed to the Press release website for the Department of Economic Affairs. Please read the press release for 22nd of July.

If you click that link it takes you to the Draft Bill - https://dea.gov.in/sites/default/files/Approved%20Press%20Release%20on%20the%20Report%20and%20Bill%20of%20the%20IMC%20on%20VCs%2022%20July%202019.pdf

  

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[avikz]

Such outcome was well envisaged by the Indian crypto community. The kind of political leaders we have currently, we can only expect to go back in time. There was actually no hope that India will adopt the digital currencies. Rather, they are focusing on divide and rule politics since the inception of the current government. The age old politicians are just not capable to understand the power of cryptos as well as the one-exam-wonder beaurocrats. God save the country!

[Vaskiy]

Such outcome was well envisaged by the Indian crypto community. The kind of political leaders we have currently, we can only expect to go back in time. There was actually no hope that India will adopt the digital currencies. Rather, they are focusing on divide and rule politics since the inception of the current government. The age old politicians are just not capable to understand the power of cryptos as well as the one-exam-wonder beaurocrats. God save the country!

Well said, it is very sad to hear the political rule of the government. The country is at its edge of separation based on religion and based on culture. World used to praise India for its diverse culture and religious practices. The monetary rule too the same, they decide as a monopoly and reveal to the people as that happened with de monetization. Now the government always have a world digitized nation, but they always stand against digital growth. Now there were news rolling out stating India gonna have its own cryptocurrency.

[CryptoBry]

I think it is quite safe to assume that the Indian government as a whole do not really see the advantages to its economy the possible recognition of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency generally so there are proposal of banning it and possible consequences of owning digital assets. This is a very sad turn of event because obviously these political leaders are so absorbed with themselves and they forget to see what other countries like Japan and South Korea had done on this aspect. Years from now when new leaders will replace the present ones, I am sure they will be shaking their heads in disbelief because previous leaders failed to seize the opportunity and allowed themselves to be convinced by wrong information and one-sided biases against cryptocurrency. I am wrong in assuming that India is known to be a country of innovation and advanced thinking.

[Kakmakr]

This is a very strange development, because India was one of the countries that made a declaration at the G20 Summit in Osaka that that "cryptocurrencies do not currently constitute a threat to monetary stability, and that technological innovation can deliver significant benefit to the economy." Source : https://cointelegraph.com/news/g20-leaders-reaffirm-position-on-cryptocurrencies-in-statement

They also committed themselves to comply with the updated Financial Action Task Force anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing standards for cryptocurrencies.

India must have something up their sleeve with this, most likely their own GovCoin.   

[7788bitcoin]

This is what the law says, I request the Indian crypto community to hold till the 26th of this month, as it is the last day of parliament and then decide. Please do not take any hasty decision.

There is nothing to worry as these sort of scare tactics will not work for bitcoin as it is nearly impossible to identify who is holding what and i do not think that the global exchanges will ban Indian users to trade, the Indian exchanges might be shut down for good, but since the government is taking a tough stance and driving the market underground people will find other options to trade including p2p exchanges.

India must have something up their sleeve with this, most likely their own GovCoin.   

So they are planning to ban bitcoin and then come up with their own shit coin which is hilarious .

[pundit]

As the thread starter said, wait for 26 July 2019. Current govt is focusing on digital India and doing many things to go digital everywhere but it does not mean govt should legalize cryptocurrency in one go. As per the draft India govt will not allow use of private crypto currencies but the same it will launch its own digital coin. Reserve bank of India along with one leading bank are on the way to build their own blockchain. India is highly populated country and terrorist from across the border and within India always try to collect funds from various sources and cryptocurrencies being decentralize in nature it may be good way to collect money for them, this may be the reason to take Indian govt such step, lets wait for the final bill, I hope India govt will surely do some research and will understand the power of blockchain technology.

[avikz]

The age old politicians are just not capable to understand the power of cryptos as well as the one-exam-wonder beaurocrats. God save the country!

This is the fear of something new, India will accept cryptocurrencies only when most of the strong countries of the world will accept it.

World's most of the strong economies like Japan, Germany, UK and USA have already legalized crypto. France is already drafting a law to regulate it. India is the 6th largest economy in the world and only strong economy with a negative outlook towards crypto.  India will probably have to start thinking positively about cryptos when majority of the opportunities are lost to the global market! 

[timerland]

That's a very interesting update. I remember India being one of the first countries to acknowledge the existence of crypto, and I hoped they would follow the other Asian countries (Japan, Korea) and place a large focus on crypto, as what Kakmakr said in his post. I always thought India would have a more efficient take on crypto and blockchain development and eventually come up with a blockchain that would be basically free to use for most indian people - with speeds that could match bitcoin.

I haven't had the time to have a look at the bill in its entire form, but it does look that crypto debit cards will be allowed, so you can spend your BTC, but selling it and other operations are not allowed. Sad to see India follow China for this, but at least this will be really good for privacy coins like Monero. I can see them coming in as a huge demand now.

[creeps]

The age old politicians are just not capable to understand the power of cryptos as well as the one-exam-wonder beaurocrats. God save the country!

This is the fear of something new, India will accept cryptocurrencies only when most of the strong countries of the world will accept it.

India is not that far from the current technology, they advanced their military and I do believe they still open for cryptocurrency, they are very good in numbers I just hope that religions doesn’t prevent their people from the mass adotion. This is not final yet, i know India will also regulate bitcoin just like the other developing countries.

[hugeblack]

I think this law is related to the banking transactions for Buy/Sell crypto as institutions and platforms will not get permits to work in the country as well as individuals if they conduct bank transactions using encrypted currencies.
I understand this from the perspective that it protects the local currency from erosion with the difficulty of developing legal frameworks so they ban it (easy way.)
I do not know if I understand it correctly but you should be careful if you are in India, keep (hodling) your coins and you will be rich.

BTW: move this topic to the Legal section.

[Vishnu.Reang]

The link you have given is wrong. Either publish the correct link, or stop spreading FUD. We all know that a draft bill is being prepared. But no one is sure about the details, and just a few days back one of the government ministers denied that Bitcoin is banned in India. A lot of propaganda is being spread on this issue for the last 1-2 months, and it is time to ignore this issue until we get reliable proof.

[fiulpro]

There is literally no difference between India and China as how government is treating the crypto currency .
I think the government do whatever it pleases we people have literally not even a say in this.
Let's look forward with respect to some things that we can do :-

1. I think we should transfer our funds somewhere , like into an international wallet
2. We can also do that with respect to wallets like samourai who doesn't ask for our country and such
3. Local bitcoins will still work for us if we start trading in USD , make a forex card .

Let the government do what it wants , we aren't leaving crypto.

[eaLiTy]

1. I think we should transfer our funds somewhere , like into an international wallet

Hope you are confused on how to store your funds securely, why to transfer your coins to a third party wallet when you can store in your own device and no government could monitor that if you know how to cut the trails and never store in any wallets that are publicly available.

If anyone is spooked about the government policy of sending you to jail, then you  can very well encrypt every communication from your internet connection using specialized operating system which takes care of every communication online,

My favorite OS for those purpose is
Whonix which is debian based

And if you are still spooked and wanted another layer of extra protection you can add Qubes OS which essentially works like a VM on top of Whonix and no one will trace you .

PS: Posting these in good faith and not a tutorial for anyone to do anything illegal  .

The point is any one can come up with rules and regulation that could scare you, but there are ways to over come those if another country accepts bitcoin and your country does not. I will come up with a detailed tutorial regarding those when there is a demand for that as i am sure many are aware how to bypass those restrictions without arising any suspicion .

[Haunebu]

This is hilarious. Who gives a crap as to whether they approve or reject cryptocurrencies at the end of the day? RBI already banned crypto a while back and many people still deal with crypto in India on a regular basis.

For example, torrents are banned around the world, but people still download them regularly even though laws are very strict in this case. The current Indian government is pathetic indeed.

[Slow death]

Ever since this banishing bitcoin india saga started, they always say that it was a panel that created this bill, can anyone tell me who created this bill to ban bitcoin in india? and which political party do they belong to? Because with this data it may be possible to understand the motivations of banning bitcoin. Politicians always have something bad when they make a decision or make a law, especially corrupt politicians

This is hilarious. Who gives a crap as to whether they approve or reject cryptocurrencies at the end of the day? RBI already banned crypto a while back and many people still deal with crypto in India on a regular basis.

with the passing of the law will be very different, people will be afraid of being arrested for 10 years

[Lizzylove1]

Some politicians are just too selfish, instead of addressing their political divides and how to better the lives of the people, they are trying limit the common man's access to financial freedom. I hope investors find a way around this. I only feel for the noobs, the pros know what to do.

[BrewMaster]

This is a very strange development, because India was one of the countries that made a declaration at the G20 Summit in Osaka that that "cryptocurrencies do not currently constitute a threat to monetary stability, and that technological innovation can deliver significant benefit to the economy." Source : https://cointelegraph.com/news/g20-leaders-reaffirm-position-on-cryptocurrencies-in-statement

They also committed themselves to comply with the updated Financial Action Task Force anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing standards for cryptocurrencies.

India must have something up their sleeve with this, most likely their own GovCoin.   

ever since Venezuela created their own cryptocurrency called Petro many other countries started watching and working on their own government created coin. one of them was India. so i wouldn't be surprised if they continue bothering those who are invested in decentralized cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin to try and build the groundwork for their own coin's forceful adoption.

[rosezionjohn]

Oh well, I guess it is good for them to finally put this approve/disapprove crypto talks to rest. If the draft bill gets approved, then it's unfortunate for the India crypto community but the loss will be on the Indian government.

[ethereumhunter]

The age old politicians are just not capable to understand the power of cryptos as well as the one-exam-wonder beaurocrats. God save the country!

This is the fear of something new, India will accept cryptocurrencies only when most of the strong countries of the world will accept it.

Soon, we will see strong countries will accept cryptocurrencies, so a country like India will follow the step. I think cryptocurrency still on the grey side which is not many countries explain allowing cryptocurrencies or not. They still wait for more, and I think they have a secret plan to cryptocurrency. Besides that, I think older people don't want to learn a new thing like cryptocurrency because they prefer to use fiat and they don't know how to use cryptocurrency.