You can't prove if someone is Holding Bitcoins | Indian Crypto Ban

[squatter]

Past ban/restriction in Indian already proven almost no one arrested for use/hold Bitcoin, clearly it's only to prevent further adaption.

I agree that the object is to deter adoption, and regular users won't face arrest. But there will likely be some high profile arrests like this one, which will scare users into submission.

But to obtain cryptocurrency for first time, most people chose to use centralized exchange rather than P2P or OTC trading.

Even if they choose the latter methods, OTC brokers can be targeted by law enforcement and P2P markets can be infiltrated. We've seen in the US how easily undercover police can set up sellers.

[stompix]

How is the government going to track down who's holding at what address? That's just stupid.

Just replace the robbers with the government

Similarly, they can't impose a ban on mining as it is just a computer software and blockchain protocol cannot be blocked by the government.

What do you think? Would the govt. be able to catch someone who violates this?

It goes down to how much the government wants this ban in effect. Can they do it? Yes! will they? ..probably not.

Let's fee for example, do you see a German on jeans happening? No. Do you see it being enforced in North Korea and punishable by death because you're wearing a symbol of American capitalism?

Can the government go after miners?
Yeah, and it's damn easy, especially after bitcoin miners.
A damn s17 pulls more power than a tv, a computer, a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner, and nobody is running those 24/7, pretty easy to track you down.

Now for the transactions and holding.
If you buy from an exchange, you're tracked.
If you buy p2p but you send money from a bank account to some random guy (that can be a police officer) you're tracked.
Buy from a shop....wait that won't be possible anymore.

So, what are you going to do with those coins? Why holding them? Just so that one day you can escape to some country with your wealth?

The government has an answer for this also, and it's called snitching.
Imagine they are going to offer 50% of the value of your coins to anybody who rats you out.
Having lived in a country where the communist went after the gold I can tell you two things will happen, people will either try to get rid of them or go nuts. Facing jail time and maybe worse, afraid of your neighbors, your relatives, under constant pressure 99% will crack.
And the rest will simply stay quiet and our of fear won't pronounce the word bitcoin anymore.

Yes, a ban can be enforced, it's just a matter on how much the government wants this and how much will the population take. If they will obey, it's done

[Ucy]

The law will likely not work. Imagine if a government bans gold, how would that government know that people are holding gold in their homes? 
People don't normally obey laws that make no sense to them even in military government. They will be more careful when exchanging cryptocurrencies with fellow countrymen.

One of the best way to use cryptocurrencies in such environment would be to use them within general purpose applications that are hosted internationally... examples are using bitcoin/cryptocurrencies on apps like Telegram, whatapp, etc.  If the crypto feature end up being disabled for Indians, they could use decentralized multiple purpose applications or VPN with temp phone numbers.

[Artemis3]

The Indian government have not done enough research on bitcoin and how it works. Maybe they think it's like a Paypal. No one in my area knows I am into bitcoin except the ones I told, and my bank doesn't even know I deal on bitcoin. They get to see credit alert on my account without ever telling the source because there is no trace. The government will soon realize they are chasing shadows.

Actually no, politicians are incredibly stupid. Someone will be blatantly making mistakes and be arrested, and they will make an example of him and how wise of them was to adopt that policy...

But yes you have to be very low profile, preferably avoid fellow Indians regarding that matter entirely. When you sell your bitcoins and when they deposit into your bank account they can fake the comment field with things like, service fee, or debt payment, for repair bill, handy work, etc.

As for electricity, yes, its possible to hide a miner or two, IF you have something that consumes a similar amount, such as an air conditioner you never actually use. But nothing even remotely resembling a farm.

[boris2470]

Such bans were created by stupid regulators who worry that crypto will destroy the fiat money of India. I do not know how the government will determine the guilty under the new law, but I already feel that this story will have a scandal!

[jakelyson]

The law will likely not work. Imagine if a government bans gold, how would that government know that people are holding gold in their homes? 
People don't normally obey laws that make no sense to them even in military government. They will be more careful when exchanging cryptocurrencies with fellow countrymen.

One of the best way to use cryptocurrencies in such environment would be to use them within general purpose applications that are hosted internationally... examples are using bitcoin/cryptocurrencies on apps like Telegram, whatapp, etc.  If the crypto feature end up being disabled for Indians, they could use decentralized multiple purpose applications or VPN with temp phone numbers.

If you are careful enough, you will not be caught. You just have to hide it pretty well even to your neighbors and close friends and check your spending habits. Because if the government gets any tip from one of your neighbors or get a hint that you are spending more than you earn in fiat, that could warrant them to have you searched. Other than that, I agree that the law is very hard to implement.

[nankers]

According to a recent bill's draft:
"India has proposed a jail term of one to ten years for those who mine, hold or sell cryptocurrencies."

I was wondering how someone could say that 'A' is holding 'X' amount of bitcoins in his address 'Y'.
What if the person generated the wallet and learned the passphrase leaving behind no physical evidence of the ownership of the address. At that point, it would just be an address with a balance on the blockchain ledger.
Or if he just made the backup of private keys on a paper and destroyed it upon inspection (having a backup somewhere else). How is the government going to track down who's holding at what address? That's just stupid.

Similarly, they can't impose a ban on mining as it is just a computer software and blockchain protocol cannot be blocked by the government.

What do you think? Would the govt. be able to catch someone who violates this?

News like this for me is no stranger because in my country until now all forms of cryptocurrency are still banned. and for a long time for this problem I always thought that government could not prevent someone from transacting using a cryptocurrency like bitcoin, ethereum or else. because for now there are so many ways to use cryptocurrency. even though the government is blocking the use of the internet for cryptocurrency, for now there are many ways to overcome this. so in my opinion the government will never be able to catch or track someone in transacting cryptocurrency

[fiulpro]

Unfortunately the IP address is trackable and at the same time we can change that too.
Most wallets like Zebpay that is prevalent in India actually take your ID cards and all , thus they actually share this information with their owners and what if they were threatened to show who was engaging?
Well the privacy policy that we tick does contain some phases like that .
Therefore if there is a wallet without requiring all this stuff maybe we can win.

[Artemis3]

Such bans were created by stupid regulators who worry that crypto will destroy the fiat money of India. I do not know how the government will determine the guilty under the new law, but I already feel that this story will have a scandal!

Actually, they are right in that regard. Once people learn about it, ALL fiats will succumb. Why? The world has no deflationary fiat, they fear it, because they don't know better than what the Chicago school of economy teaches. If they learned about the Austrian school, they would understand how a deflationary economy is possible and stop opposing it.

Bitcoin separates State from currency, there is no turning back. They will no longer be able to manipulate the currency, no sudden devaluation to fit their ill conceived budget and make everyone poorer in the process. Politicians love to lie to make them safe face, and playing with people's wealth is one such away.

The deep truth of the matter, is that people will revolt at some point unless they either make their fiat deflationary, or legalize bitcoin. Countries around them will flourish while they sink, because of choices like this. "To protect their local currency", at the expense of everyone's wealth. This is the same kind of stupidity that brought us to (currently) the world's worst coin: Venezuelan bolivar (Because Zimbabwe lost their fiat after doing the same for years).

Does India want to follow next? People there should be angry with their politicians, but i know how it is with corruption and power and how everything is a lie.

Now what do you think will happen once people learn that there is a world accepted currency out there that cannot be manipulated on a whim by politicians or financial institutions of any country, which happens to be gaining value constantly (because everyone else is devaluing their money on their backs)?

Let me tell you this, India won't be alone in the revolt. Your politicians are making you poorer, to protect their ill gotten wealth, and more than one will hypocritically be secretly buying bitcoin...

[pooya87]

the thing about bans like this (which has not yet became law by the way and is still a "proposal") is not about whether people can go around it or even if the government can catch them, the real question is always about whether people are even going to try to go around the bans and do something that is "illegal".
you see, majority of people are not going to do something if it is considered by their government as illegal even if they wanted to and even if it wasn't really an illegal act. in other words if things like this go through, many will actually give up using bitcoin. they may hold what they have already bought because they still know the potential but they won't be involved any longer.

[bryant.coleman]

This is exactly why the authorities are pushing hard for the KYC implementation. Right now, a majority of the cryptocurrency users are anonymous. Once they feel that a certain threshold (say 90%) has gone through the KYC process, then it becomes easier for them to implement a blanket ban on crypto. I have seen a lot of posts here supporting KYC. But few people realize that the real aim of KYC is not to protect, but to persecute anyone who holds cryptocurrency in his wallet.

Things are different in India. I have been to that country, and it is one of the most corrupt regions in the world. Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh are able to get Indian ID cards and even passports for as little as $1,000. In case a ban is implemented there, then the cops will be very happy. Armed with the KYC data, they will detain any suspected individual who has a history of crypto trading. The laptops and mobiles will be seized and if any coins are found, then they will encash it themselves.

And that is why it is such a bad idea to go against the law in India. The American cops would look like angels in front of the Indian cops. A lot of people disappear after getting arrested by the cops, and no one has the courage to say anything against them. A few years back, I heard about an incident where a teenaged minor girl, who was kidnapped from Nepal for trafficking somehow escaped and ended up at a police station. The cops raped the girl for one week, before returning her to the same people who had kidnapped her.

Indian Bitcoin users should consider immigrating to some country, where human rights are valued. There is no other option.

[Fundamentals Of]

It is going to be extremely hard for the government to pin down a man due to his Bitcoin holdings. This is the direct consequence of the anonymity feature of Bitcoin. Bitcoin portfolio does not bear any name, address, nor any personal information. One cannot therefore easily link a Bitcoin address to its supposed owner. The burden to prove beyond doubt the ownership is with the government. Good luck with that!

[hatshepsut93]

Maybe they can't prove that you are holding Bitcoin, but if they'd really want to, they could prove that you use it - whenever you'd send/receive Bitcoin, there will always be a risk that you will get deanonymized. Also, a ban would just kill all local merchant adoption - enterprenuers wouldn't want to risk jail just for supporting a payment method. So, goodbye the dream of buying groceries with Bitcoin, if Bitcoin is banned, you can only spend it on darknet markets. And if you'll try to sell your coins, you need to come up with a really good way to launder them first, which is also a crime.

People shouldn't confuse that the software works regardless of the laws with the reality of actually using it - a ban can have a huge impact on the latter.

[Janation]

What do you think? Would the govt. be able to catch someone who violates this?

I am also wondering how will they do that. People in India can still access their wallets, make transactions, trade cryptocurrencies and use it as a payment method without them getting in jail.

Obviously, people will stop accepting Bitcoin especially the merchants, shops or platforms in their country but in terms of exchanges, gambling sites, trading platforms outside their country, they can ban that but I don't think Bitcoin users will be stopped like that. There are still a lot of ways to use Bitcoin, not in their country but on the internet.

[timerland]

A couple of countries in North Africa has applied the same law about a year ago, and since then, there have been no reports about anyone being arrested or jailed for holding crypto even though no services/exchanges (except for BitPay) has banned these countries (that make it very easy for law enforcement to contact these exchanges and ask for user's details)... The reality is that there is no proper mechanism for this and the government clearly has not enough resources to apply this, especially not now after bitcoin being used by a lot of people. These laws are clearly made by people who don't know the nature of crypto, and also to target weakhearted citizens.

This post piqued my interest and I did a little research, and it seems like the countries in South Africa that have banned bitcoin are Ecuador, Columbia, and Bolivia. I looked up cases of people actually getting arrested for just using bitcoin, and I found no examples. The only people that were punished for the use of bitcoin was when the use of crypto was directly tied to other illegal activities.

But to obtain cryptocurrency for first time, most people chose to use centralized exchange rather than P2P or OTC trading.

Most people use centralized exchanges due to the ease of access, but if there where more promotions put into DEXs and P2P platforms, I reckon it'll be fairly split. This doesn't mean much though, because the people who own BTC right now can sell it and not get in trouble later on, right?

[Kakmakr]

India is building a gate with no fence around it.    They will not have the expertise to spot "hidden" private keys that are stored in plain sight. There are many ways to hide things in plain sight... Steganography is the practice of concealing a file, message, image, or video within another file, message, image, or video.

You can even circle letters and numbers within a book or just store the encrypted private key in the cloud. So, they are trying to stop a dam wall from breaking with a spoon. I would collect Crypto currencies for years and then go on a luxury holiday in a Bitcoin friendly country and spend those bitcoins on a holiday of a life time. <Taking money out of the country and also all the tax income that my own country would have received.>  

[BrandProtect]

The adoption of such a law by the parliament is not really possible. This is a restriction of freedoms and rights of citizens.
To control this is not possible.
Indicative sanctions - will not help!

[CryptoBry]

Those people who drafted this proposed bill are just stupid and they are using their traditional mindset and experience for the proposed ban. The law if passed can be a laughingstock because even in China right now I think the government has already accepted the fact that determining if someone has Bitcoin can be a big futile and inutile endeavor. It is impossible to enforce it not unless the government will be assigning a security escort to each and everyone. I am then hoping that they withdraw this bill and never allow themselves to be victimized by wrong notions and biases in this modern age of digitalization and information. This can set India so backward and future generations will be regretting of the lost opportunities allowed to slipped out of the hands of many good and innovative Indians.

[pakhitheboss]

According to a recent bill's draft:
"India has proposed a jail term of one to ten years for those who mine, hold or sell cryptocurrencies."

I was wondering how someone could say that 'A' is holding 'X' amount of bitcoins in his address 'Y'.
What if the person generated the wallet and learned the passphrase leaving behind no physical evidence of the ownership of the address. At that point, it would just be an address with a balance on the blockchain ledger.
Or if he just made the backup of private keys on a paper and destroyed it upon inspection (having a backup somewhere else). How is the government going to track down who's holding at what address? That's just stupid.

Similarly, they can't impose a ban on mining as it is just a computer software and blockchain protocol cannot be blocked by the government.

What do you think? Would the govt. be able to catch someone who violates this?

The was never a problem with holding, trading, and mining of cryptocurrency. There has been enough discussion about them in this forum. Most of us know it is not possible to track or trace cryptocurrency by the government until someone goes to the authorities and tells them about it. But, it was nice to see that you made a topic about it on the forum. I do not think now anyone can miss it.

The main issue is converting cryptocurrencies to fiat. If the Ban comes into existence all exchanges will have to close. If they close then there will be only one way to cash out and that will be the illegal way. If caught that will bring a lot of humiliation and bad name to that individual in the society and mainstream media will be at its best.

[arpon11]

According to a recent bill's draft:
"India has proposed a jail term of one to ten years for those who mine, hold or sell cryptocurrencies."

I was wondering how someone could say that 'A' is holding 'X' amount of bitcoins in his address 'Y'.
What if the person generated the wallet and learned the passphrase leaving behind no physical evidence of the ownership of the address. At that point, it would just be an address with a balance on the blockchain ledger.
Or if he just made the backup of private keys on a paper and destroyed it upon inspection (having a backup somewhere else). How is the government going to track down who's holding at what address? That's just stupid.

Similarly, they can't impose a ban on mining as it is just a computer software and blockchain protocol cannot be blocked by the government.

What do you think? Would the govt. be able to catch someone who violates this?

Mining is a combination of software and hardware and to mining bitcoin now encompass huge computers that can easily identify. The software can even be traced by governments agency. If governments put a ban on cryptocurrency except someone can manipulate, it will be very difficult to do without being cut. The only thing I see by India government banning cryptocurrency and build their own government-approved digital currency is that they are going to regret it later because if developed countries are treating bitcoin with carefulness then i think it is going to be something of great values in future.