India makes ownership of Bitcoin criminal offense - How to respond?

[Lionel]

It means they fear Bitcoin!
This proves Bitcoin is effective, as a competitor  to their monetary systems.

Hail Bitcoin and stick with it

If they accuse you for holding Bitcoin,
what evidence do they have?
Maybe that you transferred BTC from an exchange?
Tell them you sent the coins to another person,  not to yourself.

And when you spend Btc to make a purchase  online ,  pretend that it was not you sending them, but you asked another person  to  do the transaction for you.

How can they prove it's not true?

[1714662730]

1714662730

[1714662730]

1714662730

[1714662730]

1714662730

[1714662730]

1714662730

[amishmanish]

--INDIAN BITCOINERS ATTEMPTING HARA-KIRI THROUGH POLITICAL DISCUSSION SNIPPED--
Take a look at the history in which how the government always approach any protest, they try to make them anti national, if we set out to protest then they will make us the dark net drug suppliers and money laundering group and they can make our life a living hell in the name of investigation.

I snipped the rest of the discussion so that we can get back on the topic of Cryptocurrency.

The political ambitions and machinations of BJP are a different beast altogether and it is not our job to do anything about this juggernaut.

Crypto is for the young, tech-savvy population. It is also useful for those who are just beginning to see the benefits of Digital India. (Checkout TikTok stars making money on DOGE in west). It fits perfectly with the Digital India initiative. All crypto exchanges in India are KYC'd so there can be no ML issues with them. Those exchanges are also supporting several ERC-20 tokens which allow the quite, little programmers to contribute and earn from those projects. If those exchanges or holding such tokens is criminalized, it will be a big setback for all those people working on these new opportunities.

Repeat after me,
"Modiji does not want that"
"Modiji wants Digital India"
"Modiji wants to help the youth"


"Modiji loves youth"
"Youth love crypto"
Hence,
 
"Modiji Loves Crypto" #Modijilovescrypto
Tweet it, Trend it.

Lets follow the simple formula and leave the politics out of it.

[eaLiTy]

~
I snipped the rest of the discussion so that we can get back on the topic of Cryptocurrency.
The political ambitions and machinations of BJP are a different beast altogether and it is not our job to do anything about this juggernaut.

The topic is about the politics and how an elected government in a democracy could bring up laws and regulation without following democracy method. I am not involved in active politics but i am not a fan of right wing fascist politics as we already saw dictators like Hitler and Mussolini and you do not need another in the near future as the world is tired of these political regimes polarizing people with lies and propaganda.

Lets follow the simple formula and leave the politics out of it.

We are seeing the digital initiative of Modi, how many months they disconnected the internet connection in Jammu and Delhi and they think they can control everyone with all the control they have. You are aware of the things that is going on, you are into business and lets talk about how GST impacted your business and how about the impact in your business in the last one year. I personally do not care about anything what any government brings, i do not want anyone to set up a business in UAE   (pun directed to you ) but i personally know people that are affected with the rules and regulation in the past several years and i know many that were forced to shut their business in the past couple of years.

[hemzer]

India has been a factory churning out excellent software engineering talent to the world.
Banning Bitcoin wont hold good for this country's future.
Just like Venezuela tried to force its crypto to the people no one wanted it. This will be a similar fate.
They will just drive Bitcoin underground in India which is good thing because decentralized exchanges will flourish and India can be the brain child of Decentralized exchanges' success story.

To me it looks like the bankers in Davos convinced the  PM of India  to go this route. while other can watch if it works or not. The PM has been fooled again to experiment with his people first because other countries cant afford to destroy its people with experiments like this to keep people under control and in a despondent state.

[FlightyPouch]

Is bitcoin a private crypto currency? I think this are those altcoins created by projects led by people that might disrupt their future digital currency. I hope they would be educated about crypto currencies and I hope the best result for our users in this fight. If they could just learn and understand what it is.

[just_Alice]

That's very sad, these kinds of governmental regulations curtail the freedoms of the citizens, and such strict regulations, 10 years in jail, seriously?? It is also very frustrating that cryptocurrencies are nearly the only thing in which Third World countries could keep apace with any other countries, cryptos could've provided opportunities to become more independent, improve the economy, I seriously don't understand what were they thinking...

[Sithara007]

Is bitcoin a private crypto currency? I think this are those altcoins created by projects led by people that might disrupt their future digital currency. I hope they would be educated about crypto currencies and I hope the best result for our users in this fight. If they could just learn and understand what it is.

The language used in this (proposed) legislation is indicative of the education/knowledge level of the ministers and bureaucrats who are involved. As you have mentioned, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum are not "private" cryptos. They are decentralized and all their transactions are available in the public. Here what they mean by "private" is any asset that is not controlled by the central bank (in case of India, the Reserve Bank of India, or the RBI). Now it is not our duty to educate these people. If they are positioned in such high ranking positions, then it is natural for us to expect at least a basic level of education from them.

[amishmanish]

~
I snipped the rest of the discussion so that we can get back on the topic of Cryptocurrency.
The political ambitions and machinations of BJP are a different beast altogether and it is not our job to do anything about this juggernaut.

The topic is about the politics and how an elected government in a democracy could bring up laws and regulation without following democracy method. I am not involved in active politics but i am not a fan of right wing fascist politics as we already saw dictators like Hitler and Mussolini and you do not need another in the near future as the world is tired of these political regimes polarizing people with lies and propaganda.

I have no love lost for the our current rulers. Least of all for their no-dissent-allowed governance. They have trained a huge section of the population to get offended about cultural identity and can get anything done with the help of that troll army and pliant media, for the time being. What i mean is as crypto community, we should pick our battles carefully. This one is about the financial benefits and benefits to the startup culture that crypto brings.

Lets follow the simple formula and leave the politics out of it.

We are seeing the digital initiative of Modi, how many months they disconnected the internet connection in Jammu and Delhi and they think they can control everyone with all the control they have. You are aware of the things that is going on, you are into business and lets talk about how GST impacted your business and how about the impact in your business in the last one year. I personally do not care about anything what any government brings, i do not want anyone to set up a business in UAE   (pun directed to you ) but i personally know people that are affected with the rules and regulation in the past several years and i know many that were forced to shut their business in the past couple of years.

Eality buddy, I only care about what happens with crypto and not about Modi's politics. The farmer protests in Delhi will go to their conclusion which essentially depends on how much support they can garner. Internet connection has been restored in J&K in a phased manner. Those are all different issues though. What i am concerned with is that I should be able to stay where I am and still work and earn in crypto.
Also, I may have given the wrong impression as I am not into business. I do think positively about it and am aware of what GST did to small businesses. It is what i have to unemotionally call growing pains or collateral damage in some cases.

[gabbie2010]

In my opinioin, soon we will see the same laws in other countries. Govs dont like money that they cant control

Nigeria too had placed a ban on crypto link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-05/nigerian-central-bank-orders-closure-of-cryptocurrency-accounts I agreed with you that other countries will follow-suit, this is quite disappointing the government should have look inward and tap in some benefits of cryptos in term of taxes of course cryptos serves a foreign exchange for their country , there are lots of developers, traders etc who earned cryptos as income invariably exchanging it to rupees thus boosting their economic activities this an eye-opener to the electorates to vote against leaders who wants to intrudes into their private lives.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Nigeria too had placed a ban on crypto link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-05/nigerian-central-bank-orders-closure-of-cryptocurrency-accounts I agreed with you that other countries will follow-suit, this is quite disappointing the government should have look inward and tap in some benefits of cryptos in term of taxes of course cryptos serves a foreign exchange for their country , there are lots of developers, traders etc who earned cryptos as income invariably exchanging it to rupees thus boosting their economic activities this an eye-opener to the electorates to vote against leaders who wants to intrudes into their private lives.

India has a long history of harassing the freelancers who mostly receive payments from outside the country. I am not sure about the exact date, but 7-8 years back the government made it extremely difficult for the freelancers to receive salary for their work through PayPal. A lot of restrictions were imposed on PayPal. For example, the Indian users are not allowed to keep a balance in the PayPal account. If they receive a payment in their account, then they should immediately transfer it to the linked bank account. They can't make a payment to anyone using the PayPal balance.. all this crazy restrictions were imposed because the government believed that the freelancers are not paying income tax on the $100 or $200 they receive for their work.

These people don't have any problem when the corporates cheat on their tax dues. India recently reduced the corporate tax rates from 33% to 25%, and even after this there were reports of frequent tax evasion by the corporates, amounting to billions of USD. But when a freelancer receives $50 for his work, the IT department become hyperactive and in no time sends a notice to his house.

There are at least 50,000 Indians who are directly employed by the cryptocurrency industry. Indirect employment amounts to many times that number. What are these people supposed to do now?

[Findingnemo]

News websites are exaggregating the actual content in my opinion, this is just the old bill and it has been in the pending status and no information about it for this year as well but there were lot of debates going on the internet media that it will be banned and CBDC will be launched for India, blah blah...

[SirLancelot]

A few days back, the Indian government announced that they will ban the usage of cryptocurrency in India. The bill is currently in queue to be presented during the budget session (which started today).

-snip

This is really bad, like what the heck is wrong with these governments people? So, they want to follow the same steps like China did, ban cryptocurrency and then introduce their own dumb digital currency which I know for sure is going to fall, because I have already seen a few countries that tried to do this and it never worked out for them, because nobody was ready to make use of a government issued digital currency, like who will even do that?

For a long time now they have been talking about banning cryptocurrency in India and at a time I thought it was over, and now they started it again .

[Vishnu.Reang]

This is really bad, like what the heck is wrong with these governments people? So, they want to follow the same steps like China did, ban cryptocurrency and then introduce their own dumb digital currency which I know for sure is going to fall, because I have already seen a few countries that tried to do this and it never worked out for them, because nobody was ready to make use of a government issued digital currency, like who will even do that?

For a long time now they have been talking about banning cryptocurrency in India and at a time I thought it was over, and now they started it again .

A small correction. The bill that the Indian government proposing is much worse. Chinese government never made the ownership of cryptocurrency a criminal offense. They just prohibited trade between fiat currency and cryptocurrency. But the Indian government wants to jail anyone who owns cryptocurrency. Even the Chinese bill was of no use and it didn't resulted in a decrease in cryptocurrency users in that country.

The Chinese government eventually came up with their digital Yuan and it had some success in being used for international trade. But from what we have seen, the digital Yuan has mostly replaced fiat payments and it didn't had a large impact on the cryptocurrency trade.   

[CryptocurencyKing]

There isn't a point in fighting what you intend to clone or would eventually accept in future. Its simply a waste of time and effort. I don't know how these politicians can seat down and instead of deliberating on pressing issues of the country, they just focus there attention on how to ruin with the mindset of replacing with something similar more like forcing it on the people and anything forced doesn't work so well.
Besides, Bitcoin and other Alt coins today are valued as much due to world usage and not some intending crypto that would be bounded by boundaries, it definitely won't work so well as it defies the universality nature of cryptos.

[cheezcarls]

This is freaking ridiculous. I am sure that there will be riots later on if this bill has officially passed and come to fruition. I am also feeling that Indians may have to relocate themselves to another country by applying a working visa or even change citizenship.

If I were born as Indian and currently staying there, I would panic and plan ahead to move to another country where it’s crypto-friendly and will apply for a change of citizenship permanently.

It is ridiculous. But the situation is not as favorable as that in the developed nations. The cryptocurrency market in India is quite large, with somewhere around 5 million to 10 million active users. But when compared to the overall population (1.4 billion), this would look like minuscule. 90% of the population doesn't have enough education to understand what is cryptocurrency and the technology behind it. If the government claim that cryptocurrency is being used for illegal purposes, then these people will support the government's stand. So forget about the users rioting, or even protesting against the move.

A better option is to travel to some other country, so that you can trade with your cryptocurrency holdings. But I guess stompix has already explained the impracticality of any such move in one of his posts within this thread.

They just simply want to generalize Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as private and illegal. Instead of making these cryptocurrencies regulated, they just simply want an outright ban without even studying their possibilities. They only focused on the bad side of crypto, not trying to dig in with it's real and positive use cases.

[ivankoh]

India has the 3rd largest population density in the world, and for the bitcoin and crypto aspects behind is a big puddle, a long story.  India is not the first time to show disapproval and request differences with bitcoin, but in my opinion, the experience with covid19 has made the friendliness between this country with bitcoin and crypto closer to the goodness.  and the state in which bitcoin and crypto are best against the germs of translation when all is still fumbling for the vaccine supply.
A positive point can be placed on the scale and changed it.

[Sithara007]

Here is the latest development on this topic:

https://news.bitcoin.com/indian-government-crypto-bill-cryptocurrency-law/

The Indian government is reportedly considering taking “the ordinance route” to quickly pass the cryptocurrency bill. “The government is of the firm view that they want to introduce the law within a month of clearance of the ordinance,” a local news outlet detailed.

The PMO, Finance Ministry, and Cabinet Secretariat have started preparing the draft details of the ordinance. The government is of the firm view that they want to introduce the law within a month of clearance of the ordinance.

I can't vouch for the authenticity of this article and I didn't find the same news published anywhere else (although they are claiming that it was first published in CNBC-TV18). But if this is true, then time is running out for cryptocurrency users in India. The article claims that the government wants to fast-track the bill, and take the ordinance route.

[Vishnu.Reang]

^^^ If they take the ordinance route, then it will be introduced by this month itself. Because the ordinances can be brought up when the parliament is not in session. And I am a bit suspicious about the haste they are showing. It is like they don't want the Indian cryptocurrency holders to get the benefit of the bull run. Why should they show unnecessary haste, when the exchange rates are rising very fast? That is, unless they have an intention to cause losses to this group.

With Tesla making the announcement about moving a part of their cash reserves to Bitcoin/Gold, I am pretty sure that other companies will also make similar moves. No one want to trust the US Dollar and keep their wealth stored in USD. I won't be surprised if it ends up like the Zimbabwean dollar or the Venezuelan Bolivar. The Indian rupee may fare even worse. And no matter how hard the stupid governments try, no one is going to use their hyperinflated national currencies.

[Vishnu.Reang]

There was clarification from the finance minister (Nirmala Sitharaman), and yesterday she made it clear that any cryptocurrency that is not issued by the Reserve Bank of India will be illegal in India. So if there was any doubt on anyone regarding the upcoming ban, I hope those doubts are cleared by now. For the Indian cryptocurrency users, we need to think about our next course of action.

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/features/story/is-india-going-to-ban-bitcoin-here-is-story-so-far-1767746-2021-02-10

The Indian government is closer than ever to impose a blanket ban on crypto-currency trading, mining and investments in the country. This will include the much talked about Bitcoin along as well as other popular crypto-currencies. A bill for the same has already been proposed and on Tuesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in the Rajya Sabha that a high-level Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) has been constituted under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Economic Affairs) to study the issues related to virtual currencies and propose actions through which all private cryptocurrencies, except any virtual currencies issued by state, will be prohibited in India.

[Sithara007]

The government seems to be very adamant in banning cryptocurrency. And they want to ban it as soon as possible. The statement from Sitharaman is very suspicious. Why after sleeping for three years, they want to bring this legislation in a haste? I guess their corporate friends have got some ideas on this sector. Most probably they want to come up with some shitcoin and before doing that they want to eliminate the competition. BTW, I want to know who are the members of this Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC). Given the fact that most of the ministers from the ruling party are illiterate, it would be interesting to know the composition of the committee.