10 ms·

India plans to introduce law to ban Bitcoin, other private cryptocurrencies

48 points by jeremylevy 6y ago

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Not sure what a 'ban' even means. Can't mine? Cant take in exchange? Because, how will anyone prevent trading online? Does government still not understand that, the Internet has no geographic location?
- nonameiguess 6y ago
  Making it illegal for businesses to transact in a cryptocurrency may be technologically impossible, but most transaction volume in a country is likely to be accounted for by large institutions and the government itself, which are going to follow the law even if technical controls forcing them to are impossible to implement. I mean, mostly. Obviously, plenty of large banks still launder money even though it's illegal. The practical end goal of any legal ban is to make the banned activity occur less than it would otherwise even if can't be stopped completely.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Yeah the point is that those who still engage in it are considered criminals and thus can be punished.
- herodoturtle 6y ago
  I stand to be corrected here (I'm sure crypto experts on HN can weigh in on this point with far better detail), but I think a "ban" in this context means that they won't allow conversion of Bitcoin to the local Indian currency and vice versa. So for example, whilst nothing can be done about Indian miners / holders of Bitcoin continuing to trade Bitcoin for other currencies in other jurisdictions (and by extension, nothing can be done to stop them from continuing to exchanging bitcoin for services and products online), Indian citizens won't be able to buy bitcoin using local Indian exchanges, nor will they be able to sell bitcoin using local Indian exchanges, nor will they be able to buy or sell products and services in India using Bitcoin.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    ...unless they do. That's the thing about BitCoin. It never leaves the internet. You want to exchange them - do it. Indian currency exists outside India. Exchanging it for bitcoin is a digital transaction. On the internet. So I still don't see the ban as even meaningful words.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
The Indian government keeps doing this (I've lost count how many times) and no one should care; just like China used to 'ban' Bitcoin to shock the market (but really was the CCP's attempt to curtail capital flight out of the country) but still had the most geographical trade volume and hash rate until recently. Their was a time the Indian government actually sent their goons to break into meetups and physically accost Bitcoin traders in India who were meeting up in person. I used to have the video of it from an Indian Bitcoiner from BTF or Reddit in the early days saved on one of my old phones, it was incredibly pathetic to witness grown men with guns beating un-armed nerds with phones and laptops in what looked like an empty factory floor with sticks or something if I recall correctly, but you saw the same thing when banks were shutting down and people were lining up in droves during the 2008 financial crisis. (Can't find that exact one anymore from back then but it happened again in 2016 [0], and its always with sticks for some reason, it must be a cultural thing Westerners don't understand.) People were literately being thrown out in the streets and grown men were weeping, begging as the guards pushed them out in the streets for access to funds in their bank accounts. It was heartbreaking but also incredibly pathetic to see Humans accept such a servile role in Life. Perhaps, rather than focusing on what amounts to very low crypto trade volume, even for a developing country, the Indian Government should figure out why their farmers are revolting in New Dheli. And why Apple contractors are having their factories vandalized due to violating supposed strict employer laws. Or why China can just have border skirmishes with little to consequences when they take causalities. For all of India's rich History, Culture and its supposed highly educated populace, it's Society makes it seem like such a backwards country that is analogous to the most absurd despotic banana republics, and while I really hope that some of the manufacturing from China is sent to India, I really don't think having any hopes it reforms the country as a whole makes sense when it still has a caste system which warrants and normalizes so much of this exploitation. Cryptocurrency, but specifically Bitcoin, is the real 'fuck you' to the corrupt fiat monetary system that currently mis-allocates, destroys capital for the benefit of a few entrenched powers. Of course India would want to stop that, but, as is the case with most censorship the Streisand effect takes over and you have an influx of newly interested people. Which ultimately comes back to the core 'fuck you' sentiment of Bitcoin. You can't stop math or software, which is all Bitcoin really is, so you just can't 'ban' any of it. What you can do is deter people from using it out in the open and pay taxes on it, cool... but there will always be a way to access it, which is why this makes no sense and should be ignored entirely. > Because, how will anyone prevent trading online... No, this they can actually do effectively; most exchanges are bound by KYC/AML laws that require certain documentation to be approved, and links to traditional legacy systems like banks. You put a choke-point there, pun intended as this is what the US did to legal businesses in other forms with bank accounts, that deny Indian citizens and you force people to go back to buying/trading Bitcoin in person OR alternatively use decentralized platforms like BISQ [1], of which I'm a big fan but could use way more users. India is a big country, so this could be a boon for them which is why I'm plugging them. Ultimately, no one can stop Bitcoin, you can only sort of temporarily slow it down in certain ways and that's the real rub for the Indian government. We've built a Network that you don't even need an internet connection to make a tx on and is fully operational right now. The same cannot be said about the alts, they can be phased out entirely overnight with little to no recourse. This will be a good lesson in which thrive and which fail so I'm looking forward to it. I wonder if we see an Indian version of Gamestop with all of this. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7V9ECI4aNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7V9ECI4aNE 1: https://bisq.network https://bisq.network
windex 6y ago
One of the many short sighted decisions by a government that is taking India back in time. The current quixotic government has a long list of windmills to fight.
JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law Governments can try but you can’t beat Gresham’s Law. No one wants your debased paper money anymore.
- jariel 6y ago
  1) People are not using BTC because of fear of debasement. 2) Nobody is forcing you to hold large quantities of cash. In fact, very few people or institutions do. Most portfolios are 90% 'other stuff'. Cash is for liquidity, it's never really been as a store of value. As a currency it works well.
  - johnrgrace 6y ago
    Almost no one is using BTC, you can barely by anything with it.
    - offby37years 6y ago
      People are buying BTC to hedge against the coming wave of inflation. They're buying immunity.
      - jariel 6y ago
        Then they're idiots. If they want to hedge against inflation they would be buying real estate, equities and commodities - not magical monopoly money.
  - JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
    1. Yes they are. Why do you think Jack and Elon and Ray are so into it now? Everyone knows too much money has been printed and the rich see it first and want out. “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” The Economist, December 4, 2003 William Gibson 2. I’m holding as little cash as I can and trading it out for Bitcoin and Ethereum every chance I can get.
villgax 6y ago
I completely fail to understand how cryptocurrency is any different than a collected art piece or pottery. It's all in the eyes of who values what & is ready to pay for it. You don't go about regulating a random artist online for what they sell to a customer be it code or a couple of fighter jets getting it on.
- jariel 6y ago
  ??? Art is not a currency easily transmissible over the internet to anyone, for whatever purpose, outside the reach of the law. India is one of the most corrupt places on Earth, it's a perfect vehicle for organized white collar criminals to avoid scrutiny and usurp the system itself. Fragile systems without robust oversight and integrity will be washed away by those with leverage and bad intentions. I don't feel as though after all this time the answer is not obvious.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- tomatotomato37 6y ago
  They actually kinda are though, obscenity laws and all that; it's why a lot of japanese content have comically ineffective censor bars strewn about.
known 6y ago
India has LOWEST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation#Total_currency_in_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation#Total_...
ttul 6y ago
Rather than banning crypto, why not tax it? Impose a 2% tax on all crypto transactions, which would serve two purposes: 1. Legitimate use would be allowed, which is a good thing. 2. Illicit use could be pursued by tax auditors, who are in many ways far more effective at achieving an outcome than are prosecutors. A ban is just a tax anyway. A tax that you pay, in risk adjusted terms, by being forced to pay the costs of dealing out of sight of the tax authorities.
- beagle3 6y ago
  Let's see now. Is BTC->USD conversion taxable according to your suggestion? USD->BTC? I suppose one or both, that's fine. Now, is a transaction on Binance? (That would be one crypto for another)? Is a transaction on Bitmex? (That would be futures.... not actually cryptocurrencies?) How about the Bitcoin futures on CME? A crypto ETF? It's likely possible to build a suggestion that will curb "crypto" trading, but the cat is completely out of the bag, so you have to figure out what you want to stop. But what's the real rationale for banning it?
- zoobab 6y ago
  You cannot tax it, it's not built-in the code.

48 points by jeremylevy 6y ago

Not sure what a 'ban' even means. Can't mine? Cant take in exchange? Because, how will anyone prevent trading online? Does government still not understand that, the Internet has no geographic location?

nonameiguess 6y ago
Making it illegal for businesses to transact in a cryptocurrency may be technologically impossible, but most transaction volume in a country is likely to be accounted for by large institutions and the government itself, which are going to follow the law even if technical controls forcing them to are impossible to implement. I mean, mostly. Obviously, plenty of large banks still launder money even though it's illegal. The practical end goal of any legal ban is to make the banned activity occur less than it would otherwise even if can't be stopped completely.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Yeah the point is that those who still engage in it are considered criminals and thus can be punished.
herodoturtle 6y ago
I stand to be corrected here (I'm sure crypto experts on HN can weigh in on this point with far better detail), but I think a "ban" in this context means that they won't allow conversion of Bitcoin to the local Indian currency and vice versa. So for example, whilst nothing can be done about Indian miners / holders of Bitcoin continuing to trade Bitcoin for other currencies in other jurisdictions (and by extension, nothing can be done to stop them from continuing to exchanging bitcoin for services and products online), Indian citizens won't be able to buy bitcoin using local Indian exchanges, nor will they be able to sell bitcoin using local Indian exchanges, nor will they be able to buy or sell products and services in India using Bitcoin.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  ...unless they do. That's the thing about BitCoin. It never leaves the internet. You want to exchange them - do it. Indian currency exists outside India. Exchanging it for bitcoin is a digital transaction. On the internet. So I still don't see the ban as even meaningful words.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

The Indian government keeps doing this (I've lost count how many times) and no one should care; just like China used to 'ban' Bitcoin to shock the market (but really was the CCP's attempt to curtail capital flight out of the country) but still had the most geographical trade volume and hash rate until recently. Their was a time the Indian government actually sent their goons to break into meetups and physically accost Bitcoin traders in India who were meeting up in person. I used to have the video of it from an Indian Bitcoiner from BTF or Reddit in the early days saved on one of my old phones, it was incredibly pathetic to witness grown men with guns beating un-armed nerds with phones and laptops in what looked like an empty factory floor with sticks or something if I recall correctly, but you saw the same thing when banks were shutting down and people were lining up in droves during the 2008 financial crisis. (Can't find that exact one anymore from back then but it happened again in 2016 [0], and its always with sticks for some reason, it must be a cultural thing Westerners don't understand.) People were literately being thrown out in the streets and grown men were weeping, begging as the guards pushed them out in the streets for access to funds in their bank accounts. It was heartbreaking but also incredibly pathetic to see Humans accept such a servile role in Life. Perhaps, rather than focusing on what amounts to very low crypto trade volume, even for a developing country, the Indian Government should figure out why their farmers are revolting in New Dheli. And why Apple contractors are having their factories vandalized due to violating supposed strict employer laws. Or why China can just have border skirmishes with little to consequences when they take causalities. For all of India's rich History, Culture and its supposed highly educated populace, it's Society makes it seem like such a backwards country that is analogous to the most absurd despotic banana republics, and while I really hope that some of the manufacturing from China is sent to India, I really don't think having any hopes it reforms the country as a whole makes sense when it still has a caste system which warrants and normalizes so much of this exploitation. Cryptocurrency, but specifically Bitcoin, is the real 'fuck you' to the corrupt fiat monetary system that currently mis-allocates, destroys capital for the benefit of a few entrenched powers. Of course India would want to stop that, but, as is the case with most censorship the Streisand effect takes over and you have an influx of newly interested people. Which ultimately comes back to the core 'fuck you' sentiment of Bitcoin. You can't stop math or software, which is all Bitcoin really is, so you just can't 'ban' any of it. What you can do is deter people from using it out in the open and pay taxes on it, cool... but there will always be a way to access it, which is why this makes no sense and should be ignored entirely. > Because, how will anyone prevent trading online... No, this they can actually do effectively; most exchanges are bound by KYC/AML laws that require certain documentation to be approved, and links to traditional legacy systems like banks. You put a choke-point there, pun intended as this is what the US did to legal businesses in other forms with bank accounts, that deny Indian citizens and you force people to go back to buying/trading Bitcoin in person OR alternatively use decentralized platforms like BISQ [1], of which I'm a big fan but could use way more users. India is a big country, so this could be a boon for them which is why I'm plugging them. Ultimately, no one can stop Bitcoin, you can only sort of temporarily slow it down in certain ways and that's the real rub for the Indian government. We've built a Network that you don't even need an internet connection to make a tx on and is fully operational right now. The same cannot be said about the alts, they can be phased out entirely overnight with little to no recourse. This will be a good lesson in which thrive and which fail so I'm looking forward to it. I wonder if we see an Indian version of Gamestop with all of this. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7V9ECI4aNE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7V9ECI4aNE 1: https://bisq.network https://bisq.network

windex 6y ago

One of the many short sighted decisions by a government that is taking India back in time. The current quixotic government has a long list of windmills to fight.

JohnJamesRambo 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law Governments can try but you can’t beat Gresham’s Law. No one wants your debased paper money anymore.

jariel 6y ago
1) People are not using BTC because of fear of debasement. 2) Nobody is forcing you to hold large quantities of cash. In fact, very few people or institutions do. Most portfolios are 90% 'other stuff'. Cash is for liquidity, it's never really been as a store of value. As a currency it works well.
- johnrgrace 6y ago
  Almost no one is using BTC, you can barely by anything with it.
  - offby37years 6y ago
    People are buying BTC to hedge against the coming wave of inflation. They're buying immunity.
    - jariel 6y ago
      Then they're idiots. If they want to hedge against inflation they would be buying real estate, equities and commodities - not magical monopoly money.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
  1. Yes they are. Why do you think Jack and Elon and Ray are so into it now? Everyone knows too much money has been printed and the rich see it first and want out. “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” The Economist, December 4, 2003 William Gibson 2. I’m holding as little cash as I can and trading it out for Bitcoin and Ethereum every chance I can get.

villgax 6y ago

I completely fail to understand how cryptocurrency is any different than a collected art piece or pottery. It's all in the eyes of who values what & is ready to pay for it. You don't go about regulating a random artist online for what they sell to a customer be it code or a couple of fighter jets getting it on.

jariel 6y ago
??? Art is not a currency easily transmissible over the internet to anyone, for whatever purpose, outside the reach of the law. India is one of the most corrupt places on Earth, it's a perfect vehicle for organized white collar criminals to avoid scrutiny and usurp the system itself. Fragile systems without robust oversight and integrity will be washed away by those with leverage and bad intentions. I don't feel as though after all this time the answer is not obvious.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tomatotomato37 6y ago
They actually kinda are though, obscenity laws and all that; it's why a lot of japanese content have comically ineffective censor bars strewn about.

known 6y ago

India has LOWEST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation#Total_currency_in_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation#Total_...

ttul 6y ago

Rather than banning crypto, why not tax it? Impose a 2% tax on all crypto transactions, which would serve two purposes: 1. Legitimate use would be allowed, which is a good thing. 2. Illicit use could be pursued by tax auditors, who are in many ways far more effective at achieving an outcome than are prosecutors. A ban is just a tax anyway. A tax that you pay, in risk adjusted terms, by being forced to pay the costs of dealing out of sight of the tax authorities.

beagle3 6y ago
Let's see now. Is BTC->USD conversion taxable according to your suggestion? USD->BTC? I suppose one or both, that's fine. Now, is a transaction on Binance? (That would be one crypto for another)? Is a transaction on Bitmex? (That would be futures.... not actually cryptocurrencies?) How about the Bitcoin futures on CME? A crypto ETF? It's likely possible to build a suggestion that will curb "crypto" trading, but the cat is completely out of the bag, so you have to figure out what you want to stop. But what's the real rationale for banning it?
zoobab 6y ago
You cannot tax it, it's not built-in the code.