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India to propose cryptocurrency ban, penalising miners and traders
- postingawayonhn 6y agoI'm sure this will end well. /s
- Jonnax 6y ago"Even China, which has banned mining and trading, does not penalise possession." I wasn't aware that China had banned mining. Whenever mining crypto is brought up, often people say that most miners are in China using hydroelectric power.
- benlumen 6y agoI think in authoritarian systems like China, loads of things that everyone does are illegal. They have something on everyone. And yes, yes - a bit of that goes on in the West too.
- capableweb 6y agoNot sure why you bring up authoritarianism with that argument. It's the same everywhere, authoritarian or not. Or are you saying that having a authoritarian system automatically leads to more "everyday things" getting illegal?
- nathias 6y agoyes, that's almost by definition
- bildung 6y agoAuthoritarianism is defined by a lack of political pluralism, i.e. multiple parties, political mobilization and free voting. Nothing of this is part of everday things.
- nathias 6y agono, authoritarianism is defined by authority taken by the political option in charge, paternalism, fearmongering etc. being the common pretenses of expanding this authority
- cocoggu 6y agoAs someone who lived there for more than 10 years. There are a lot of "grey areas" in China, much more than in other countries. Many things are considered illegal but still tolerated. I actually like this feeling and most expats do as well but I believe this way the government almost always have control over individuals. If they want to find something to arrest you, they will find something.
- saurik 6y agoSay more about why you like that feeling?...
- clusterfish 6y ago(Not the op) in such environments where the government doesn't usually care about you, you have more freedoms in practice but they are not guaranteed [1]. In the west you have more freedoms that are guaranteed, but I would say less freedoms in practice as government loves telling you what you can't do all the time. It's a mixed bag either way. People have different preferences. [1] You could say it's not a freedom unless it's guaranteed. That view is not universal. Freedom in practice trumps freedom on paper for a lot of people.
- cocoggu 6y agoWe like the feeling because often, even if it's not explicitly said, there is a hidden way to obtain what you want. In Europe, if an administration/company tell you no, there is often no negotiation, no way to get what you want. In China, often, if you master social tricks, you will be able to obtain it.
- newswasboring 6y agoI'm going to guess here, but I think because in such a system anything is allowed till you don't bother the government. And if you think about it, unless you are part of a group disliked by government, most things you want to do doesn't bother the government. It's actually easy to live a "normal" life, because most people don't belong to a group disliked by the government.
- 6y ago
- benlumen 6y agoYes. Governments that maintain their authority by oppression (as opposed to obtaining a mandate from their population) have a strong incentive to create an environment in which its easy to imprison people for things. This is quite basic stuff and I had thought it was widely understood.
- legulere 6y agoWhat China lacks there is rule of law.
- melling 6y agoAnd because they use the hydroelectric power, other people must use the coal power for electricity. Coal is a huge part of the grid in China.
- logicchains 6y ago>And because they use the hydroelectric power, other people must use the coal power for electricity Not necessarily; the excess power goes to waste after whatever batteries the grid has are filled.
- dieortin 6y agoYou could ramp down coal plants instead of just wasting the excess power
- Retric 6y agoDams are effectively batteries. Total production over a month is roughly fixed, but second by second they have a lot of flexibility. Pumped hydroelectric was invented afterwards to fill the same role.
- ronsor 6y agoMining is perfectly legal if you make a few "payments" i.e. bribes.
- notamy 6y agoI might have missed it, but the article doesn't really seem to touch on the why of this. I get that they're thinking about launching their own digital currency, and might just want to be rid of potential competitors, but is there any other potential reason for it?
- christofon 6y agoMy guess would be the uncontrollable nature of CC and the resulting economic independence of actors in the system.
- neartheplain 6y agoCould it be a move to eliminate ways of hiding untaxed income, as with the 2016 snap cancellation of 500 and 1000 rupee bills? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41896865 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41896865
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago> I get that they're thinking about launching their own digital currency, and might just want to be rid of potential competitors A state wanting to continue to control currency, taxation etc seems like a fairly predictable and compelling reason though. It would be interesting if that's not the reason, but I don't think that we need to search hard for one.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sodality2 6y ago"Top Indian officials have called cryptocurrency a “Ponzi scheme”," probably has something to do with it. CNBC as well says "The measure is in line with a January government agenda that called for banning private virtual currencies such as bitcoin while building a framework for an official digital currency." [1] 1: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/15/india-plans-cryptocurrency-ban-will-penalize-miners-and-traders.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/15/india-plans-cryptocurrency-b...
- spikengineer 6y ago
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoI am not sure that the mention to China is accurate, see [0]. Perhaps they're confusing the whole China with one of its regions, Inner Mongolia? [1] Edit: by the way, it seems to me that this is the key part in the article: > The measure is in line with a January government agenda that called for banning private virtual currencies such as bitcoin while building a framework for an official digital currency. I'd read this as India trying to pave the way for a huge adoption of its local digital currency, and therefore banning other crypto might be seen (by govt officials) as the way to go. [0]: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/cryptocurrency/china.php https://www.loc.gov/law/help/cryptocurrency/china.php [1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-inner-mongolia-end-cryptocurrency-102003764.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-inner-mongolia-end-cry...
- shepardrtc 6y agoTo "propose", as said by a "senior government official". So basically this is a great way to crash the market a bit, buy the dip, and then nothing will ever come of it. Just like the first few times they did this. Clever. The media will, of course, report it, the market will, of course, crash, and these government officials will make some nice money.
- adflux 6y agoThis is good for bitcoin /s
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rini17 6y agoThis is not going anywhere. However, I can foresee electricity rationing (not in India but here in EU) after mismanaged transition to renewables. Both rolling blackouts and spot prices are unpopular...so what else is left when there's not enough baseload?
- spikengineer 6y agoThese restrictions will be more common among developing countries. This is legitimate financial regulation and has nothing to do with bombastic statements by some media accusing the Indian govt of overreach Most developing countries are at a high risk of capital flight by the rich and hence they regulate foreign exchange with Capital controls. India already has a cap of USD 250k limit on capital flight by individuals. Nowadays bitcoin is a common method to escape capital controls. This law will prevent capital flight by the rich which they earned with the patronage of Indian citizens and escape reinvestment locally
- spikengineer 6y agoLegitimate business are allowed to exceed capital controls after verification of intent and is a long standing practice among many countries
- literallycancer 6y agoWhy would capital controls ever be legitimate?
- spikengineer 6y agoCapital controls are necessary to prevent complete failure of the financial system of developing countries due to hyperinflation where the rich can extract the maximum from the economy and runaway by investing in foreign economies. This is acceptable at a small scale but can cause serious issue if scaled up. The only countries that are safe from this are developed countries with reserved currencies like USD or are resource rich like Saudi Arabia . US doesn't need capital controls because their currency is treated as a reserve currency and the buffer to prevent hyperinflation is very high
- danlugo92 6y agoJust don't hyper inflate so the capital doesn't flee?
- deleted 6y ago
- Ariez 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi7V_RoUW3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi7V_RoUW3k
- draklor40 6y agoMost likely fake news. The finance minister went on stage on (Mar 14, I think) and said that there will be no blanket ban on crypto. Source : https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/india-today-conclave-not-all-windows-to-be-shut-for-cryptocurrency-says-fm-nirmala-sitharaman/ar-BB1eAypT https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/india-today-conclave-no...
- _bohm 6y agoThe article says a bill has been introduced in the legislature. That there might be a disagreement between members of the legislature and the ministry of finance seems entirely plausible to me.
- albntomat0 6y agoThere's also a big gap between which bills get introduced and what actually gets passed
- frankbreetz 6y agoperhaps that's what "propose" means?
- albntomat0 6y agoYes. The comment I was replying to speculated that the disagreement was between legislature as a whole and the finance ministry. My comment pointed out that the disagreement could be internal to the legislature itself.
- _bohm 6y agoThat's a misreading of my comment. I was just pointing out the fact that the minister of finance expressed opposition to this does not make the story "fake news"
- 6y ago
- option_greek 6y agoJust wish they would get on with a complete ban or whatever instead of sending rumours in news every couple of months. What competent government takes this long to do something that they already have declared multiple times through news channels? It's almost like they are just setting up honeypots in the interim for later on surprise raids.
- bitreality 6y agoThis will be an interesting case study in what happens when a government goes head on against cryptocurrencies. This will lead to some interesting innovation in the space. There are too many cryptocurrency users and believers in India at this point. We will see some interesting P2P exchange platforms where anonymity becomes paramount.
- jokoon 6y agoI have no problem with this. Currencies are not trivial things. I'm fine with bitcoin staying underground. The only way for anybody to trust a currency is to have a government regulate it. Authorizing crypto exchangers without tight regulations opens the door to money laundering: https://imgur.com/a/TSf8PPc https://imgur.com/a/TSf8PPc Only criminals and hardcore libertarians will argue against regulations.
- TtEdN7jwT 6y agoBitcoin trading increased in nigeria after it got banned there.
- perryizgr8 6y agoThe Indian government is quite a bit more powerful than Nigeria, unfortunately. They are very efficient in enforcing laws that impede on citizens' liberties. For example, the government will simply disallow any crypto exchanges from converting between ₹ and any crypto currencies. That will deter 99% of the potential users from ever trying it out.
- qertoip 6y ago> That will deter 99% of the potential users from ever trying it out. Nah, we had this kind of ban on western fiat currencies in communist Poland. And guess what, illegal p2p trading of USD worked just fine.
- lupire 6y ago"just fine" is a funny word for "lands a lot of people in a torture cell"
- itsdsmurrell 6y agoThis is so sad. The opposite of what I'd hoped would happen... that the third world's failing currencies would make people there get into crypto first and end up benefiting them the most. Instead, the whole of crypto seems to be a 1st world number go up phenomenon. I'll still be pushing Bitcoin Cash as a solution to people in countries that don't ban crypto.
- perryizgr8 6y ago> third world's failing currencies I don't think our currency qualifies as a "failing currency". The ₹ is quite strong, the people's trust in the government is quite high, and there is no need for citizens to run to other currencies. As an example, the government outlawed all the cash in the country in 2016, with 4 hours' notice. This basically rendered 1 billion people helpless. But people still voted the for same government back in 2019, with an even greater majority.
- JdeBP 6y agoDiscussion from a few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26460907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26460907 The URLs merely differ in "us" versus "uk".
- primitivesuave 6y agoRegulating the Indian economy is like squeezing a water balloon - whichever direction you squeeze from, you only make some other part fatter. If this ban went into effect, average people might comply and divest from crypto, but wealthy opportunists will always find a way to subvert government regulation through bribery and political connections. Look at demonetization - people with large amounts of illicit funds would bribe bank managers to create thousands of new accounts in their name, to overcome the reporting/exchange limits. The aam aadmi (Hindi for common man) ended up with the short end of the stick, as the cash supply dwindled and people had to spend hours waiting at the ATM.
- spikengineer 6y agoExpectation of difficulties of enforcement is not a legitimate concern that can exceed or override the need for regulation. Lack of regulation can be much worse. False dichotomy
- primitivesuave 6y agoIn many cases I would agree with you, but I encourage you to read about demonetization in India, as that is a good example of how regulation produced a worse outcome because of the unique forces at play within the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetis...
- notsureaboutpg 6y agoBut demonetization was a really really dumb idea. I feel like any other example might prove your case better. It's not like in another country it would have been a great success. The idea of surprise revoking a certain denomination of currency is idiotic.
- dmingod666 6y agoThe people that hold assets and resources have things their way and face less consequences than those that don't. Always was the case, always will be..
- siuto 6y agothis is insane.
- tzahifadida 6y agoFinally, some sense. Bitcoin is ridiculous and encourages global warming. Basically fueling global destruction with greed. Governments needs to issue their own crypto currencies backed by central banks and make it illegal to privately issue coins. There are many cases in history printing money by groups against the states and it usually ends badly.
- lupire 6y agoSame as meat and cars.
- intotheabyss 6y agoAnd ridiculous westerner vacations at all inclusive resorts. The amount of waste that goes into fueling that industry is absolutely ridiculous, and yet of course no one would want bans on that!
- bigbillheck 6y agoI could be persuaded.
- beforeolives 6y agoMeat and cars contribute to climate change but also provide solutions some of the biggest problems that humanity has had historically - food and transportation. Bitcoin doesn't have the same upsides.
- teatree 6y agoI have asked this previously, asking again, believing bitcoin will become digital gold is believing - * US will let go of the petrodollar / reserve currency status. * China will allow a democratic process to control their currency / economy. * Other developing countries like India will give up the ability to control inflation etc of their own economy. Do you sincerely believe these are possible ? Also, if most of mining & hardware required for it is controlled by China and we are buying this digital gold via real currency, isn't a significant global wealth transfer happening to China ? I don't know if India's decision is right or wrong, we do have a history of taking incredibly stupid "shooting oneself in the foot" decisions, but questions above do bother me.
- throw8932894 6y agoWhy not both? Party officials can be very nationalistis, communism forever, death to Taiwan. But their family is in western country and 60% of their assets are out of communist shithole their call home.
- ejanus 6y agoI was thinking that India wants to be the new China in tech and manufacturing, this path would not get them there. Capital control would be history soon. Fiscal barriers may not allow innovation to blossom.
- user-the-name 6y agoWell, there's absolutely nothing democratic about controlling Bitcoin. But that won't make China any more interested in giving up control to it. Also, Bitcoin is not technologically capable of getting anywhere near close to functioning as a global currency on large scale.
- iso1631 6y agoChina has about 65% of the bitcoin mining capacity online at the moment, it already controls bitcoin.
- DINKDINK 6y ago
- quelsolaar 6y agoImagine the day we have to explain to the next generation that they live in a climate hellscape because the world decided to burn fossil fuels to collect digital beanie babies, instead of saving the world. I say ban mining, the sooner the better.
- tifadg1 6y agoInvest in your responses more, or are you truthfully thinking that cryptocurrencies are responsible for climate change?
- dgellow 6y agoProof of Work does and will contribute in non-significant way. That’s exactly what the incentives are. It’s by design.
- ric2b 6y agoThe incentive is to produce proof of work, not energy wasted. That's why miners use highly specialized and efficient machines and not just any random computer that draws a lot of power.
- xbar 6y agoYou cannot have ever been in a room doing mining. Your phone is highly specialized and efficient. Coin mining is a noise parade and heat monstrosity that grows up to the limit of how much power it can draw at affordable rates. I have run billion dollar datacenters. They are dwarfed by small mining operations in their heat production and power consumption.
- ric2b 6y agoI don't understand how what you said is in disagreement with my claims. Yes, miners try to use their machines as much as possible, like any other business, but they still try to it as efficiently as they can. Undervolting chips to increase efficiency is quite common, for example. And my phone is not very specialized at all, when compared to a mining ASIC.
- asdev 6y agoso AI, VR, autonomous driving are all solvable problems and worthwhile pursuits while sustainable Bitcoin mining via harvesting thermal energy isn't? oh okay.
- EGreg 6y agoI warned about this a few weeks ago, and people were skeptical. But sadly “in retrospect it is inevitable”. Where is the flaw? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26220992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26220992 Let me refine my prediction to describe the transition period. Bitcoin will actually deepen inequality in the world, by robbing the third world countries of electricity first, and no one in first world countries will care. The politicians of the third world countries would be paid off similarly to how Nestle or CocaCola buys up lakes and pollutes them. And privately owned infrastructure and lakes will fall even faster.
- ACAVJW4H 6y agoOn one hand I can understand and relate why a government would implement such a ban. On the other I am really curious in which legal frame you can justify “doing math calculations on your computer is illegal” without destroying personal freedom and liberty. Bitcoin is a real curveball
- exclipy 6y agoBitcoin is just doing calculations on your computer, the same way crystal meth is just doing chemistry in your RV
- ACAVJW4H 6y agoThis is straw manning my point. Calculating hash functions is literally doing calculations on my computer and no it’s not cooking drugs and has nothing to do with drugs.
- DetroitThrow 6y agoHow is it a straw man? It seems an apt analogy given your critique of the ban: it does not matter the implementation details, if society deems some behavior against the public good, then there will likely be an intervention if the enforcement of such seems feasible. It does not matter whether it's just some math or signals on a computer - torrenting CP is just "doing some math" on your computer, but it is similarly banned.
- lupire 6y agoThe point is, what exactly is the behavior that is harmful? Is it the pollution? Tax circumvention?
- DetroitThrow 6y agoBoth perhaps, I won't try to pretend I know what the Indian legislature is thinking, but the collective harm it might be doing was not the question the root comment had asked - it framed that computation in-itself needed a moral justification to be deemed illegal, which is much more broad than the narrow task of mining bitcoin and would include math operations on computers that are currently illegal, such as distributing child pornography. The commentator then called a critique of that lens a "strawman", despite CP and many other computations (see other comments in the thread) already being illegal.
- Black101 6y agoThis is shortsighted... either it won't pass or it will get reversed later.
- fny 6y agoIn 1933, Roosevelt banned holding gold and silver. In 1934, the Gold Reserve Act allowed the government to set a fixed price for gold and buy out all domestic gold holdings for cash. This remained in effect until 1961 when the laws were relaxed. Then in 1971, the US jumped off the gold standard. Prior to that point, gold was the global reserve currency. BTC is far less widely owned and far less legitimate than gold was in the 1930s (it actually was the global reserve currency then). The political friction is low for heavy regulation or an outright ban across even developed markets. My bet is that the green argument will be the first attempt to neuter BTC. Disclaimer: BTC neutral. I own a small amount, and treat it like an option on a speculative asset.
- qertoip 6y agoIn my country running a sports gym, a restaurant or a hotel is illegal. So yeah, I won't be surprised if Bitcoin will suddenly become illegal. Literally everything is becoming illegal as we speak.
- abhiminator 6y agoDidn't this exact same story get posted earlier today that later got flagged as a [dupe]?! Here's the link to the post made earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26460907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26460907 That said, this move -- if enacted into law -- will be an incredibly foolish act on the Indian government's part and will act as a catalyst in driving away the next generation of bright young Indian innovators and engineers from the country.
- lakecresva 6y ago> will act as a catalyst in driving away the next generation of bright young Indian innovators and engineers from the country. Somehow I doubt there's much of an intersection between "the next generation of bright young Indian innovators and engineers" and crypto miners who care enough or run an operation large enough to justify leaving the country over this.
- abhiminator 6y agoBanning crypto is just the tip of the iceberg. The administration in power currently has massively damaged the confidence of international investors as well as the citizens in India by taking extremely heavy-handed top-down and often ill-planned decisions. See 2016 demonetization, 2020 national lockdown and the 2021 farm protests. Also the country is veering towards authoritarianism rapidly, and this bitcoin ban is just a mere symptom of a much much larger problem that lies ahead for India. I was talking about the 'brain drain' in that context.
- FooBarBizBazz 6y agoI'd be interested to learn more about capital flows documented in the blockchain. Can wallets be traced to countries? Can we get an idea what the flows are into and out of India? My sense is that a lot of the interest in Bitcoin, globally, is driven by preparation for capital flight.
- whatever1 6y agoBitcoin uses almost as much energy we spend to run the internet datacenters [1],[2]. 121 TWh/y for bitcoin (just bitcoin, not crypto), 205TWh/y for the Internet data centers. Just pause for a second and think about the magnitude of the waste. [1] https://energyinnovation.org/2020/03/17/how-much-energy-do-data-centers-really-use/ https://energyinnovation.org/2020/03/17/how-much-energy-do-d... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952
- disruptalot 6y agoUnbelievable. Is it really worth boiling the oceans? It's critical that we move to text only internet that has a per site cap of 100kb. That would cut the energy usage by 99% with virtually no difference to the experience.
- nvilcins 6y agoWhat fraction of the global "energy throughput" is this?
- dnadler 6y agoIt looks like the world as a whole consumes > 100,000 TWh per year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Energy_supply,_consumption_and_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Energ...
- 6y ago
- flixic 6y agoSeconds ago, this story was #1 (169 points in 1 hour). Suddenly, it's #23 on the homepage.
- Sebb767 6y agoAs far as I know, HN gives a push to submissions in the first hour to allow it to gain visibility. That push probably expired.
- DetroitThrow 6y agoI think dang has also talked about how "controversial" comment sections in posts causes them to be deranked more quickly, and with this having as many comments as points within an hour, it certainly seems like it'd meet the criteria.
- tholex 6y agoClearly some burying going on, there’s stories above this at 50 points / 8 hours ago, and it’s at 200 in one hour... news.yc doesn’t like the fact that its main craze for years has been outed as a global affliction, destroying the climate with impunity.
- anandrm 6y ago"Instead, the bill would give holders of cryptocurrencies up to six months to liquidate, after which penalties will be levied, said the official, who asked not to be named as the contents of the bill are not public. " - Its better to wait for an official statement than these speculative journalism
- frankbreetz 6y agoIt seems like competent government would put a crypto-ban as part of the climate accord. If you look at this from bullish bitcoin perspective, the large energy use is good for the climate as it will make people invest more in cheap renewable and this innovation will spread around. I find this argument to be tenuous at at best, but lets say it's true. It doesn't matter, what matters is that people view as an environmental problem and there is a perfect avenue to globally ban PoW, and even ban any crypto that use PoW, in a way the most people will go along with and view as helping them and not squashing the people's financial liberation or whatever we are calling it this week. Some countries may not go along with this, I think Pakistan and some others, but if enough large countries(It's easy to see China, EU, USA, all jumping on board) say we are not doing this BTC will be pushed to the fringes and easy to be manipulated by state governments. At least this is what I would do if I were a government official who was actually worried about crypto challenging the governments power, but must governments do not seem too worried about it.
- nootropicat 6y agoThe trading ban is honestly good for India, crypto so far doesn't generate any profits, only losses. Any individual profit must come at the expense of someone else's losses + mining on top ensures it's a giant loss-making ponzi. Early adopters are overwhelmingly Westerners, Indians buying in now would create a net transfer wealth from India, and India can't afford it. Stated differently, crypto has a negative expected value - it destroys wealth. Once that changes and (some) crypto starts to generate genuine profits reversing the ban would make sense, but until then, let Westerners with more money than they know what to do with play ponzi games with each other. In the West even losing everything is an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things - there's ample food, jobs and welfare. Being poor in India can mean you actually starve to death [1] There's no reason to ban mining however. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/first-coronavirus-now-starvation-hunger-stalks-millions-indians/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas...
- mandown2308 6y agoWhat about the ones who already own it? They would need to forgo their bitcoin right?
- biolurker1 6y agoEvery year yes
- djohnston 6y agoGood luck. Hopefully when BTC use is unchanged in the face of the ban people will see it's true power as a tool the current ruling class can't control so easily.