37 ms·
India seeks to block most cryptocurrencies in new bill, government says
- iskander 5y agoAn interesting angle that seems overlooked in articles about India and China "banning" cryptocurrencies is that these efforts are often linked to a desire to create centralized digital currencies. e.g. from this article: "India is also looking to make a framework for the official digital currency that will be issued by the Reserve Bank of India."
- trasz 5y agoIe creating something that could be useful as an actual currency?
- RealityVoid 5y agoI find it amusing the baked in assumption of your post that currencies can only be real if they are backed by a state. I think that is... No necessarily true. Just because something held up for a long time does not mean there is some essential reason why things can't be another way. That holds true of a lot of human innovations. People could not imagine automobiles or flying or computers, but that did not make them impossible.
- spiralx 5y ago> People could not imagine automobiles or flying or computers, but that did not make them impossible. People imagined versions of those things for a long time before they were practical. People have imagined other types of currency as well, and non-state backed currencies aren't even novel given plenty of examples have and do exist.
- PeterisP 5y agoThey don't have to be backed by a state, however, it's quite obvious that "permissionless", "uncensorable" and "truly anonymous" are features that won't be accepted by states for a legitimate currency (just as they aren't really tolerated for cash, driving all kinds of restrictions and controls of non-tiny amounts of cash), so it's quite plausible that in the long run the legal businesses and law-abiding citizens will be allowed to interact only with payment mechanisms that have disabled those features in some way; so if any given cryptocurrency unavoidably has those features, then people will be prohibited to touch it, limiting their usage only to criminal purposes.
- iskander 5y agoIt would definitely have a lot more buy-in from banks if it were centrally sanctioned but I'm not sure if the functionality would be much different from a stablecoin on an efficient L2. I would personally rather have banks integrate with e.g. USDC on zkSync but I suspect that the lack of control is what makes that scenario undesirable for governments.
- rufusroflpunch 5y agoIt's 100% about CBDC's. CBDC's are the endgame for tyranny, really. We should be doing absolutely everything we can to fight this.
- spiralx 5y agoHow are CBDCs the "endgame for tyranny" in a way that (presumably) fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies aren't? Seems a bit hyperbolic, but maybe you have good reasons to be so alarmed.
- csomar 5y agoYou can't ban someone from owning or using cash. But you can do so with a CBDC.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoYou can also dictate how the funds in a CBDC wallet are spent. There was a proposal that CBDC wallets could be issued stimulus funds that expire unless they are spent within a certain time frame. This is to prevent people from just putting the check into a savings account.
- csomar 5y agoCBDC are just a huge/national bank. It's a dream come true for the Marxists.
- spiralx 5y agoAs far as I'm aware CBDCs are a largely theoretical concept right now, do you have any links to an implementation such as you're describing?
- MonkeyClub 5y agohttps://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
- spiralx 5y agoDo you have evidence that "a desire to create centralized digital currencies" has anything to do with "banning cryptocurrencies"? Because lots of countries have expressed interest in CBDCs and most of them aren't talking about banning anything. Indeed, it's often central banks talking about CDBCs, which aren't even in the position of banning anything. Seems to me that CDBCs are just the new topic for conspiracies about how cryptocurrencies are being held back by the Powers That Be.
- iskander 5y agoThe two are often juxtaposed in the coverage of crypto bans, I don't know if they're also juxtaposed in the political intentions.
- betwixthewires 5y agoWell, they can try, but even with centralized exchanges, a VPN will do. And then there are decentralized protocols. Once you have some of your money in cryptocurrency there's no real way for anyone to stop you from moving your money around however you like. The only points that can be controlled are interfaces with banks.
- ProfessorLayton 5y ago>The only points that can be controlled are interfaces with banks. That's... A big deal?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lottin 5y agoYeah, well, basically they stop you from cashing out, which means your crypto-holdings are worth zero to you, whatever their market value.
- betwixthewires 5y agoIt is a big deal if you're only speculating and need to cash out. But if you can buy goods and services informally in these currencies, or use tools like stablecoins to speculate on network, it's really nothing to worry about.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- instagraham 5y agoThe interfaces have almost been reduced to a couple of options: A single mobile wallet, or P2P. A ban would force the wallet's company to stop allowing its use on crypto exchanges.
- mathnmusic 5y agoBanks can block accounts of centralized exchanges (and have done so in the past when govt asked them to). And once conversion from and to fiat money is disabled, there's very little value left in cryptocurrency.
- onemoresoop 5y agoHow are they going to be doing that? China seems to be banning all crypto every year.
- zepto 5y agoQuite successfully, it would seem.
- endisneigh 5y agoEasiest way would be to block exchanges. Though one could go to another country and withdraw and convert the money, the more countries that block exchanges, the more targeted one could be towards the remainder for money transfers.
- sombremesa 5y agoWouldn’t that just lead to a black market? Especially in a country that loves its informal economy like India?
- joe_the_user 5y agoIf bitcoin is illegal, the only reason to engage in a black market transaction to obtain would be if it gave you access to material thing you could not otherwise get - unless there active hyper-inflation going on, no one would want to illegally obtain bitcoin just so they could turn around and buy some good they'd be able to obtain with normal, legal transaction.
- ashwagary 5y agoAll it takes is a decent return for savers since the INR is a terrible store of value. The massive gold black market in India is a clue that Bitcoin isnt going anywhere.
- instagraham 5y agoIt's not as easy to participate in the informal economy as it used to be. Everything from one's bank to one's mobile number and govt id are linked. If you want to deposit funds in an exchange, you'll need some form of KYC--barring which your bank debit/credit card is linked anyway. The banks, even before the ban (which has yet to come), were keeping track of customers making payments to exchanges. In some cases, they customers a letter, erroneously citing an central bank order banning cryptocurrencies that had later been struck down by the Supreme Court. Despite no regulation, they've been denying services to exchange, preventing their cards or UPI payment addresses being used to transact either. Most mobile wallets followed suit. The only option that remained then was P2P. I should caveat that I'm not sure I fully understand how that works in this case, though. The issue is there's no real anonymous way to pay someone besides cash, unless you already had a crypto account with a wallet that had been filled. So an informal economy will need a safe way of turning physical cash into crypto and vice versa, in a regulatory environment where it may be banned to transact cryptocurrencies. Crypto adoption is a gradual curve where people will only slowly start putting their savings or investment funds into a crypto account.
- m00dy 5y agoYou can seek to block cryptocurrencies but you can't block decentralised protocols. P.S: I'm someone important at LongShort.Finance
- babyshake 5y agoA good rule of thumb is that if someone says they are important, they are probably not important. The important people are the ones with nothing to prove to plebs like us.
- 0des 5y ago> P.S: I'm someone important at LongShort.Finance What a peculiar addition to your comment.
- dboreham 5y ago> someone important Everyone here is important.
- ganeshkrishnan 5y agono uh. not me
- lilSebastian 5y agoKeep telling yourself that
- pinneycolton 5y agoI'm important, but my importance is fully decentralised. It means almost nothing :)
- blntechie 5y ago> P.S: I'm someone important at LongShort.Finance So I opened the site and it pretty much only asks me to connect to the wallet. No explanation of what it does, what it’s for etc. which are even standard in scam websites. They sure appears extremely scammy even though it might not be.
- 5y ago
- TekMol 5y agoTokens like Bitcoin, Eth, NFTs etc are the only thing one can own in the digital space. So if a country makes the possession of cryptocurrencies illegal, it makes their people digitally possessionless. This would cut them off from the next version of the web. Similar to how North Korea cuts of their people from the current web. So far it seems no country that cuts of their people from the internet has been able to flourish.
- rollcat 5y agoAll ownership (digital or not) is nothing but a social contract. The cryptocurrency (or normal currency) exists because enough people agree to recognise it. You can buy and own a domain name. If trust in DNS is violated, we'll have much bigger problems.
- TekMol 5y agoOwning a token means you can perform certain actions on a distributed system. No social contract needed. You own the token by owning a secret key which gives you the power to move it. It's like owning a key to a door. It gives you the power to lock and unlock the door. No social contract needed. You can not own a domain. You can only pay a registrar to have them talk to a registry. You then are at the mercy of both. Use the HN search tool to read an endless amount of horror stories of people who lost domains and sometimes decades of work because of this.
- LegitShady 5y agoits not a door. It's a number on a blockchain. It has no inherent value and no inherent function. It's just a number on a blockchain. Everything else is tulipmania.
- TekMol 5y agoIf digital assets have no value, then you are probably fine with having your hn handle, your bank account and your phone number deleted? The value of digital property is widely accepted for decades now. What crypto adds is that you can hold the key to your property yourself. So others can not move or delete it against your will.
- shubhank19 5y agoThe article seems a little misguided. The news was "private cryptos", not all cryptos.
- givemeethekeys 5y agoWould this would apply to a coin that a company would issue outside of the controls of a regulatory body vs. bitcoin, which is decentralized?
- vmception 5y agobut the layer 1 cryptos are all moving towards private even bitcoin’s taproot amendment that just got passed and implemented does this to a limited extent
- radicaldreamer 5y agoThis is about the 12th time that India has "banned" cryptocurrencies. Don't believe it...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dboreham 5y agoCrypto industry must not be contributing enough to politicians, like they seem to do in the US.
- charlesju 5y agoThey need to sponsor more sports teams
- arenaninja 5y agoThat's an interesting idea!
- aym8 5y agoPoliticians aren't behind it. The Central Bank is. Why? Just Google India NPA crisis history.
- rip_netrunner 5y agoAnd yet, the uniformed masses seize upon the news every time as proof that crypto is doomed.
- SpaceManNabs 5y agoMore of a reason for Polygon to go succeed with their zk plans.
- k__ 5y agoWould you mind to elaborate?
- Tepix 5y agoIn cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof or zero-knowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that a given statement is true, without conveying any information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true. You can build untraceable anonymous cryptocurrencies using these algorithms.
- k__ 5y agoAh, thanks. But I wanted to know about what Polygons ZK plans are and why GP hopes they succeed.
- SpaceManNabs 5y agoIt is their plan to become a true L2 and not a centralized sidechain. If they are centralized, then a ban from India wipes out polygon is my thought.
- realce 5y agoPeople are pretty arrogant around here, but we're reaching the next phase of crypto: Government Competition. The current crypto ecosystem is probably allowed so the tech can flesh out organically, then the best bits and bobbles will be plucked for inclusion in official government-approved currency. What State wants to be the guinia pig for any of this stuff - your whole country could collapse. Let people figure it out and give them all the risk, the State can take over later. Other coins will be considered exclusive pathways for money laundering and will be nerfed like bearer-bonds or precious metals are in the US. There's no actual resource - violent or material - that backs any crypto. The only backing is it's novelty. Once the novelty is copied by the State, it will be rubbed out IMHO.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cletus 5y agoCrypto is increasingly looking like a Ponzi scheme to me. I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion on HN but it's no less true. The fact is that blockchain solves a problem for almost nobody. The primary use seems to be to avoid real or threatened government intervention. These uses are largely illegal, by definition (eg bypassing capital controls in China). Now you can argue the morality of such laws but that's irrelevant. Cyrptos have wildly failed as a "currency". Even so-called "stablecoins" just peg themselves directly or indirectly to fiat currencies so they're really just adding another point-of-failure. We should be calling them "cryptoassets" not "cryptocurrencies". As for escaping government seizures and the like, try telling that to Ross Ulbricht [1]. This year, China started to crack down on crypto mining [2]. The "security" of crypto is a myth. They can and have forked and have well-known weaknesses (eg 51% attack). I can't help but think of this [3] wrt security. Proof-of-work wastes a ton of energy for basically nothing and, just like China, countries will increasingly clamp down on this, especially as voters increasingly face rising energy costs. Proof-of-stake is basically a fantasy of how we'll solve PoW problems with a lot of hand-waving. It having not happened yet is pretty good evidence of this being a fantasy. All it really takes is for action by the US and/or EU to say something like "financial institutions who trade in cryptos lose access to the banking system" and the market implodes. Sure the government can't stop you adding more transactions to the blockchain but for what? If no one can take your "currency" what value does it have? Weirdly, crypto has seen the resurgence of gold bugs who have long held an irrational hatred for fiat currencies, completely with false claims in some cases (eg the US dollar was never 100% backed by gold, ever). Things like reversible transactions and the ability to print money are actually a feature not a negative as they're often portrayed. And even if you get past all this, you want users to securely manage a wallet when failure to do so means they could be irreversibly be robbed of their balance? Governments are slow to react and they tend to only react to things that become viewed as a threat. Crypto is so niche it's not a threat. But that doesn't mean the US government couldn't fatally wound the crypto market tomorrow if it chose to. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/business/china-cryptocurrency-bitcoin.html#:~:text=China%20intensified%20its%20crackdown%20on,for%20newly%20created%20crypto%20tokens https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/business/china-cryptocurr.... [3]: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- bob331 5y agoGood. Time for the Uk to do this too
- DantesKite 5y agoI'm glad. Bitcoin hasn't done anything good, except become an outlet for criminals, Ponzi schemes, gambling, and poor financial decisions.
- ccheney 5y agoSounds exactly like fiat money...
- bufferoverflow 5y agoThat is just a lie. Bitcoin is an easily accessible deflationary instrument. And while it can be used for illegal things, so can USD or any other currency.
- tenebrisalietum 5y agoRansomware couldn't be implemented with cash.
- bufferoverflow 5y agoFalse. Ransomware predates cryptocurrencies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGPCoder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGPCoder
- Tepix 5y agoYou're right. But cryptocurrencies make it much easier for the criminal.
- iskander 5y agoA "deflationary instrument" with an issuance of 6.25 BTC per block...
- bufferoverflow 5y agoIt has known cap, and coins get lost.
- seaourfreed 5y agoDon't tell the Indian government where Polygon chain / MATIC came from.
- largbae 5y agoFirst they ignore you... then they laugh at you... then they _fight_ you....
- seaman1921 5y agoand then you lose :)
- gvv 5y agoLoad ze India FUD ...
- sekura 5y agoLooking at "India's first crypto Unicorn" you wouldn't know that government is planning to block anything. https://coindcx.com https://coindcx.com
- nathias 5y agolet's make a cricket DAO
- csomar 5y agoThe discussions around crypto here kind of proves that you cannot use popular opinion in HN to predict the future. People were very negative (and still are) about crypto. Market cap kept proving them wrong year after year and we are here with around $2.6 Trillion and yet people here still think crypto is going to die. It's interesting because in startups, you learn from the first day that you should listen to customers and follow the demand. The demand is very high and some people were puzzled how other people where depositing money in "shady" exchanges. Yet, that's a perfect example of "demand" that needs instruments to be satisfied. Reality check: Most of the world suffers from hyper-inflation at worst and inflation at best. Not everyone lives in the USA/Europe and has access to good banking and investment options. Not everyone cares about their governments like in a developed first-world country. Crypto is here to stay and it is going to play a significant role in global finance. Somebody here should read what the bureaucrats at the IMF thinks, or look at the roads in New Delhi. Gov. blocking crypto, yeah, right.
- 0xB31B1B 5y agomarketcaps in crypto mean nothing. The universe is full of wash sales, there is not 2.6T of liquidity, a ton of volume is insanely leveraged and amplified through defi pools, and looking at a transaction volume adjusted view of the world, like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. Lets see what happens after the run on tether happens, then we can talk about what the crypto world looks like.
- csomar 5y agoEven at 1/4 of that, it's $650bn. That's a tons of value. > like 99.9% of transactions are valueless gambling OR money laundering. You need to prove that. GBTC and CME options volumes/open value are in the billions. I don't think people are laundering money through these instruments.
- 0xB31B1B 5y agoYou don't need to launder money through GBTC to get exposure to the assets that money launderers use (BTC) to launder money and reap the upside of a growth market in cryptocurrency based moneylaundering. its a smart play tbh, but the 99% off chain economic benefit from crypto today is money laundering, evading KYC protocols, tax evasion, ransomware related transfers.
- thepasswordis 5y agoSo did the "China bans cryptocurrency" FUD wear off or something?
- heywherelogingo 5y agoIf I'm not mistaken, the bitcoin price has been unaffected by this news - how does that work?
- yashg 5y agoBitcoin has crashed on the largest Indian exchange WazirX by 25%.
- victoro 5y agoHonest question I constantly think about and have never been able to answer about the future of cryptocurrency development: Why/when would a government ever want less control over the primary means used to transact within its borders? This is one of the, if not the most, important levers it has to wield power. Governments have fought wars and enslaved entire continents to protect and increase the value of their means of account. Even recently, think of how hard the US works to maintain the dollar as the only currency that can be used international oil transactions aka the petrodollar. Ultimately, cryptocurrency is a technological attempt to solve the problem of a fundamental lack of trust in our traditional institutions. After all, its powered by a set of de-centralized, trustless protocols. If you use crypto as an inflation hedge, that means you don't trust your government to not de-value your labor via printing tons of new currency. If you use it to carry out transactions, it means at least a small part of you has doubts that our that our current, centralized payment processing institutions won't unilaterally roll those transactions back or eliminate them outright in the future. Ditto for property rights and NFTs (and all the other use cases that guarantee a transaction is recorded by distributing it on chain). Allowing crypto-currencies to supersede local currencies would not only put governments at the mercy of the mob (or perhaps a small number of whales and exchanges) for determining the value of their citizen's output, it would be an existential admission of their failure. Other than governments that have already failed at administering a currency like El Salvador, why would any self-respecting government with a functioning currency admit defeat like this?
- seaman1921 5y agoAgreed. As long as people make some quick profits, they will blindly support anything, even fight governments - even if that thing makes it easy for criminals to launder money. It is going to be an interesting battle. I got my popcorn and enough fiat currency to survive whichever way this goes. In the worst case my plan is https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- yashg 5y agoMajority of the people who gamble on crypto are doing so only to make a quick buck. They neither know nor care about the ideology, decentralization, removing intermediaries and other such lofty goals of crypto. Most people are in it because they either saw someone making a lot of money or read about it in the media and they also want a piece of it. It's speculation, plain and simple. If not ban, government needs to regulate it like it regulates other speculative markets. As for the libertarian goals of removing the central authority - that's not happening.
- known 5y agoAfter seeing the Demonetization fiasco in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetis... I don’t think Modi regime in India understands the difference between Digital Currency and Crypto Currency https://twitter.com/0x101/status/1317685559414972418 https://twitter.com/0x101/status/1317685559414972418