Proposed Law in India Would Imprison Anyone Who Uses Cryptocurrency (indiatoday.in) 116
Holding, selling or dealing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin could soon land people in India in jail for 10 years. From a report: The "Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019" draft in the nation has proposed 10-year prison sentence for persons who "mine, generate, hold, sell, transfer, dispose, issue or deal in cryptocurrencies." Besides making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence, too. Given the high chances of cryptocurrencies being misused for money laundering, various government bodies in the country such as the Income Tax Department and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had endorsed banning of cryptocurrencies.
India is the new China? (Score:2)
Re:India is the new China? (Score:4, Funny)
Every movement goes through four stages: (Score:1, Insightful)
First they ignore you;
then they ridicule you;
then they crack down on you
and then you win.
Looks like BitCoin just moved up to step 3.
Re:Every movement goes through four stages: (Score:4, Insightful)
Every movement? You mean there are none that failed? Remarkable.
Re: Every movement goes through four stages: (Score:2)
Not every movement wins, some dies a slow death.
But this decision is as I see it a way to try to crack down on the scammers like 'Microsoft Support' calls.
Re:Every movement goes through four stages: (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks more like bitcoin has become the child porn of data files. Seriously you can hold a fraction of a bitcoin in a data file that can be spammed to any one. So someone emails you a fraction of a bitcoin and you are now a criminal, try to delete it and you have broken the law again. So buy an old hard drive, that happens to have that bitcoin file on there, well, you have bought a prosecutable offence that you can not delete without committing another crime.
Sure you can ban trading but you can not ban holding, it is nothing but a data file, that any one can be targeted with.
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It's not mellow yellow?
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Saffron is the new red.
Red as in Communist red, or red as in GOP red?
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Prisindia (Score:1)
"You thought we were a backwards shithole before? Hold my fermented street-milk.." "The whole point of currency is that it's PINK and you need THOUSANDS OF THEM TO BUY ANYTHING, Bitcoin is fake!"
I tend to agree (Score:1)
Subverting a country's currency is the quickest way towards subverting a country's stability
The CIA is no stranger to this phenomenon
Bitcoin serves very few purposes that are both (a) legal and (b) could not be done using fiat currency
So no Amazon Giftcards then? (Score:2)
Or Itunes accounts?
What about pre-paid visa cards?
Transaction fees (Score:1)
What you say may be true of Bitcoin. But there are other cryptocurrencies with lower transaction fees. How, using fiat currency alone, do you envision to reduce the 30 cents per transaction fee associated with online payment using a credit card or debit card?
Micropayments (Score:2)
My point wasn't to compare the fees of one cryptocurrency to those of another as much as to compare the fees of cryptocurrency in general to those of Visa and Mastercard. Practicality of payments smaller than 0.25 USD is among "purposes that are both (a) legal and (b) could not be done using fiat currency." If Bitcoin's fees become cheaper, that'll be an even bigger advantage against the fiat currency infrastructure.
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Remove or rationalize all the regulations which tanked e-gold, instead of just letting cryptocurrencies get away ignoring them.
Banking regulations, UCC etc. keep international money transfers expensive. Cryptocurrencies are allowed to avoid almost all of those regulations.
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7k How, using fiat currency alone, do you envision to reduce the 30 cents per transaction fee associated with online payment using a credit card or debit card?
You can't aquire Bitcoin with a credit card without transaction fees either.
If you don't want to pay transaction fees there are numerous legitimate services: PayPal, Cash.me, Venmo... etc that have no transaction fees.
PayPal might charge transaction fees for business transactions but that's for insurance and effectively Escrow service. Bitcoin doesn't offer that either.
Indian politicians and police . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
. . . prefer their bribes in cash anyway.
A friend from India told me that at night police traffic stops an officer might approach your car with a flashlight, and then unscrew the battery compartment.
That is your cue to stuff some cash inside. Then you can drive on.
That would be difficult to do with BitCoins.
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Not very difficult... (Score:2)
then unscrew the battery compartment.
Which has a camera with a QR reader along with the side compartment for cash, and an NFC pad to accept ApplePay...
Corrupt officials could really learn a thing or two from the service industry about offering multiple payment options in case you had not hit up an ATM recently or were just on your way to the gym.
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That is your cue to stuff some cash inside.
Here's a nice tightly rolled wad of cash, officer. Pay no attention to the smoking fuse hanging out of the end.
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Come on man, you can't expect a developing country's corruption to be as advanced as America or Europe. They don't have a stable enough system to pull off civil asset forfeiture, public sector unions extorting the taxpayer, advocacy groups that push their interests, and intimidating elected officials with their investigative powers.
Just shove a 20 in and be glad the inmates aren't running the asylum.
India seems to be doing the opposite (Score:2)
What does "Hold a cryptocurrency" really mean? (Score:3)
This is the sort of law that makes me want to (claim to) donate a few satoshi to every politician who supported this bill.
Sure they might say they don't have a bitcoin wallet, but can they prove that?
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It might not get used every year but a person has access to it when they want.
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That's not really true. Your idea of "your property" is bound to and enforced by the rules of the majority. The idea is to make the process fair so that you know the rules and play by them and everything works out like it should.
In practice, of course, everything is a lot more complicated than a Libertarian's fantasy economic-thesis based on "underlying bootstrap technology." Property is a complicated concept, rights, you can't just easily write up absolutes.
Trust me. The reason the "living" law documen
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Your idea of "your property" is bound to and enforced by the rules of the majority.
Instead of a bill of rights which protects individuals in minorities against mob rule. We like your stuff, Anon. We'd like to take it.
Re: The 2nd Amendment is why nobody touches my stu (Score:1)
Blah blah blah, guns.... fucking idiot.
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Yeah, the ability to defend yourself is so.... unreasonable.
When the bad man comes, you should just lay down and die like God intended.
I don't understand the mentality of not wanting to have the ability to defend ones own life and family. This idea that to promote the greater good of societal safety, an unlucky few will simply have to stand there and die. I'd rather give people the ability to at least have a chance...
Too far, imo (Score:2)
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Bitcoin as a way to earn money, or to use it as actual currency in the case of BTC is a stupid idea indeed.
Bitcoin as a way to buy drugs or do other kinds of fishy business is somewhat practical though, although I would bet the vast majority of people couldn't consistently maintain anonymity with it.
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Probably the same reason we've got laws against certain forms of gambling. It's generally frowned upon to trick people out of their money, even if they had it coming.
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What about tourists? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this mean that any tourist that has a CoinBase app installed can be arrested?
Or does it mean you have a cryptocurrency app that has a private key stored locally?
Kind of a scary proclamation which should do nothing at all to halt the use of crypto-currency.
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You shouldn't travel with that phone. You know the routine...
...Really? (Score:2)
Of course it fucking does. When you visit a country you are subject to their laws, *all* of them.
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Hardly a new thing, if you go to China with certain apps on your phone you might get arrested if they are discovered. Porn, VPNs, Tor etc.
Don't need to read the article to know... (Score:2)
,,,India has been trying quite directly to reduce corruption and black market trading that steals from tax revenue needed for improving various matters for their populations benefit.
This is not to dismiss government corruption but even this is part of the issues to resolve.
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Given their current record unemployment rate of 6% - their highest in 45 years, they need to take a second look at cryptocurrency and allow the population to mine whatever bitcoin or etherium or whatever else they want to mine, so that they dont' starve, and that the government doesn't have to bloat their bureaucracies just in order to employ everyone
I suggest ... (Score:2)
And whatever you do... (Score:2)
Meanwhile (Score:1)
Shitting in the streets like animals is still perfectly acceptable. Imagine the smell of that place with their current heatwave!
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Shitting in the streets like animals is still perfectly acceptable. Imagine the smell of that place with their current heatwave!
Wouldn't it smell like San Fransisco?
Bitcoin is designed for hostile environment (Score:2, Insightful)
Executive Order 6102 (Score:2)
Don't be smug, America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No price dip? Odd (Score:1)
You'd think an announcement like this would cause a devaluation in the bitcoin-- after all, if the law gets passed, that's a *big* chunk of the world economy that you can't use bitcoin with. (1.3 billion people). But no, it's just wiggling along as usual. No sell-off.
The summary left out an interesting: After banning "cryptocurrencies", India wants to launch its own "digital currency" (the "digital rupee"). Doesn't that imply they are starting their *own* cryptocurrency? Is the purpose of the law simply
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The Reserve Bank of India has denied any knowledge of a proposed ban on cryptocurrencies – despite reports that a number of governmental agencies have backed the draft legislation – according to a Right to Information request filed on 4 June.
Varun Sethi, a lawyer specialising in blockchain, filed the inquiry into the RBI-s involvement with ‘Banning of Cryptocurrencies and Regulation of Official Digital Currencies Bill 2019’ draft.
Bank officials said the RBI was not in communication with governmental agencies during the legislative process and had not received a copy of the bill. The bank forwarded several of Sethi’s questions to the Department for Economic Affairs as well as the Ministry of Finance – including, ‘What are -official digital currencies’ as per the RBI?’
The bank has been involved in cryptocurrency legislation as recently as April when the organisation unveiled a regulatory sandbox that would allow blockchain products – excluding digital currencies – to be tested on a sample of consumers. It has not endorsed a full ban on cryptocurrencies in the past.
link to article [newstodaynet.com]
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2016? Didn't you see the 2 elections before that? Remember Palin?
Do I have to? Really, both parties have gone after super fringe groups and it is frustrating.
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