India To Propose Cryptocurrency Ban, Penalizing Miners and Traders (reuters.com) 64
According to Reuters, "India will propose a law banning cryptocurrencies, fining anyone trading in the country or even holding such digital assets." From the report: The bill, one of the world's strictest policies against cryptocurrencies, would criminalize possession, issuance, mining, trading and transferring crypto-assets, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the plan. 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. But recent government comments had raised investors' hopes that the authorities might go easier on the booming market.
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. Officials are confident of getting the bill enacted into law as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government holds a comfortable majority in parliament. If the ban becomes law, India would be the first major economy to make holding cryptocurrency illegal. Even China, which has banned mining and trading, does not penalize possession. According to the senior official, the plan is to ban private crypto-assets while promoting blockchain. "We don't have a problem with technology. There's no harm in harnessing the technology," said the official, adding the government's moves would be "calibrated" in the extent of the penalties on those who did not liquidate crypto-assets within the law's grace period.
The report notes that 8 million investors in India now hold 100 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) in crypto-investments.
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. Officials are confident of getting the bill enacted into law as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government holds a comfortable majority in parliament. If the ban becomes law, India would be the first major economy to make holding cryptocurrency illegal. Even China, which has banned mining and trading, does not penalize possession. According to the senior official, the plan is to ban private crypto-assets while promoting blockchain. "We don't have a problem with technology. There's no harm in harnessing the technology," said the official, adding the government's moves would be "calibrated" in the extent of the penalties on those who did not liquidate crypto-assets within the law's grace period.
The report notes that 8 million investors in India now hold 100 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) in crypto-investments.
debunked (Score:1)
Re: debunked (Score:2, Insightful)
Link to debunking. Bitcoin is the main channel for ransomware payments so if it's banned we may get rid of some scammers.
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Link to debunking. Bitcoin is the main channel for ransomware payments so if it's banned we may get rid of some scammers.
That, but we would probably have better results if we tracked a few down, dragged them through the streets, then burning them at the stake, leaving their smoldering corpse there as a warning to the rest. What? I didn't say do it. I can have dreams can't I?
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I'll get the matches.
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Ransomware is a big enough business that the criminals will find other ways.
The problem is more likely to disappear because ransom payments are going down, ransomware protection solutions are becoming more common and average revenue per victim is dropping. All three factors make the business less interesting.
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Do you honestly think this has anything to do with ransomware.. In the days of yore... they used gift cards, and western union payments.. In short, when someone wants to extort funds from you, there is ALWAYS a way. Bitcoin just got them off other services like gift cards and onto a different plattform.
bitcoin uses to much power. Now SA needs it (Score:2)
bitcoin uses to much power. Now SA needs it load shedding does not need the waste of mineing
Re: Ban bits? (Score:2)
How they going to buy it? Physical exchange? Only the people with off shore accounts will realistically be able to continue to trade.
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When a gov bans Bitcoin the price of it goes up (as seen in Nigeria, where it immediately started trading at a substantial premium post ban). This provides the impetus from enterprising individuals to find solutions to the problem. Defi trading platforms seem obvious. P2P-stuff. Indian gov has no chance.
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So does non good delivered gold and silver at times, but the liquidity sucks.
The market for such things is tiny compared to liquid investments.
Yes (Score:2)
Please
Crypto Curry (Score:3, Funny)
They are afraid their monopoly on curry will disappear. Anyway call me when they are going to ban curries in general. Especially spicy chicken curries. That stuff will max out your CPUs and kill ya. In a good way.
Re: Crypto Curry (Score:1)
I once made a raita with so much garlic in it, no one came near me for a week. It was excellent. But watch out for those dodgy vindaloos. They'll have you on the bogger for hours.
Re: Crypto Curry (Score:2)
Raita with garlic isn't a good idea. At all.
Even though I like eating raw garlic with some things, I can't imagine it with yogurt / curds. Although, raita with Onions is common. And equally bad in terms of smell.
Easy solution is to ensure other person also eats such smelly stuff when u do !
Then they can't smell it on your breath due to olfactory fatigue from their own smell !
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
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now other counties need to follow. Bitcoin is a waste of electricity and a massive engine for making many crimes much easier to get away with. I've had it with the get rich quick bandwagon of destruction.
I don't disagree about it being a waste of energy, but "a massive engine for making many crimes much easier to get away with"? This is a common misconception. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The way the blockchain technology works, it is possible to trace back any person who had the currency. In fact, it is much less private and anonymous than cash, so it really isn't a useful tool for crime.
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Of course it's a useful tool for crime. It's not as anonymous as cash, but it's as a lot more convenient, particularly for international computer crime. And it's a lot more anonymous than accepting the victim's credit card for payment.
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And it's a lot more anonymous than accepting the victim's credit card for payment.
Well, then.
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Has anyone calculated how much energy it will take to finish mining all 21 million bitcoins using the currently best available ASIC or GPU?
Re: Good (Score:3)
The way the Bitcoin economy (the rules on how Bitcoin are generated and distributed and how electricity is used in mining) works the reward for mining new Bitcoin goes to 0 over time.
What's left is transaction fees. Those are currently (during a giant run-up; current volume is high) around $7M/day. So, that's a good rough estimate of the amount of electricity the final network would be using assuming a transaction rate like we're seeing now.
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Government officials, especially in dodgy corrupt democracies, or dictatorships, are not above playing games with its legality to their own advantage.
Actually, that's exactly why they went into power. Corruption is not a sad abberation. It is the core goal.
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The difficulty in generating an accepted hash adjusts to the current hashrate, so anywhere between practically no energy to all the energy in the universe.
It doesn't stop when the block reward is zero. The idea is that transaction fees will replace the block reward and the blockchain will carry on forever.
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Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it is silly trying to ban a computer file. What you ban is real currency financial transactions for crypto, ban financial institutions from trading real currencies for them and allow all illegal transactions to be taken back. You can no really ban crypto, want you can ban is trading in them, especially for real world assets.
You should look at the decentralization itself! (Score:2)
A lot of people are failing to understand that the only innovation is the decentralization.
The decentralization is not software related. The decentralization is a consequence of incentives. If you fail the decentralization, the project is pointless.
Altcoins have leaders, premine, paid shills, perpetual software updates... everything leads to more centralization. In other words, Altcoins are not designed to be decentralized.
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An awful lot of business gets transacted in the black economy. Prior to cryptocurrency, the mechanism of choice was paper money - cash - because it was difficult to trace. Switching to BTC just enabled a more global approach.
So a nation like India basically has a couple of choices - they could ban all cryptocurrency outright [which has lots of tempting benefits], or they could permit it, but
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now other counties need to follow. Bitcoin is a waste of electricity and a massive engine for making many crimes much easier to get away with. I've had it with the get rich quick bandwagon of destruction.
And there it is. The argument waiting just offstage for its call from the lords at the top, ready for echo chamber cogs to start barfing it once the Word is given.
In case you were wondering (Score:2)
Why are shithole countries shithole? This kind of shit.
Not pro or con bitcoin myself, but opposed to the Leviathan taking away your choices.
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Re: In case you were wondering (Score:1)
Sick burn, bruh. Us Americans are super butt-hurt by your denigration of our country. We'll go fester in our vast wealth, liberal governance, and global cultural domination.
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The US carries on like it has massive abundance, but it's ignoring a giant debt problem.
US national debt per person: $223,893
US median income per person: $35,381
The only way out is to not live like you have "vast wealth" but to be less wasteful.
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Oh yeah? https://academy.ivanontech.com... [ivanontech.com]
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The US did not "control" its currency until Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. The Fed was not created until 1913 and the Accord of 1951. The US has prospered because its currency and economy is (relatively) uncontrolled.
When India was the world's largest economy, was the currency under government control? I grant that India is improving, because the dead hand of the State has lifted a little. But Indian government control has resulted in its economy declining from first to sixth. It's like b
Doesn't this (Score:1)
Re: Doesn't this (Score:2)
Goods and services cost more on the black market. That means the money being used on the black market is worth less.
This makes sense. Money's value comes from the ability to exchange it for goods and services. Difficulties exchanging a currency should generally drop its value.
Re: Doesn't this (Score:2)
So money (ie $ or Rs) will be worth less when we buy BTC on the black market.
Even now it's more expensive if you want to buy BTC with cash, instead of say bank transfer /IMPS /Swift /GPay.
Cash remains the safest for criminals umm.. privacy minded people, BTC is just easier to store, doesn't lose value so quickly every year as cash - infact appreciates most years and easier/ safer to send receive large amounts across the world.
Even "political donations" and bribes to govt officers have shifted to BTCs in a
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Cash remains the safest for criminals umm.. privacy minded people,
Cash is getting a bad reputation for entirely selfish reasons, the main one not being privacy, but the fact that nobody takes a cut when you pay with cash.
If you can take even the smallest sliver from every transaction, you have a license to print money. Doesn't matter if the medium is credit cards, Apple/Google/whatever/ Pay, or crypto currencies. Transaction fees are a billion-dollar market, globally possibly a trillion-dollar market.
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someone is still getting a cut.
who, exactly?
This is what happens when the money is inflated.
Ah, some abstract concept. Well, I'm reasonably sure the abstract concept of inflation won't turn around and use my money to lobby lawmakers to make laws that benefit it and punish me.
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Not really abstract. The devaluation of currency year on year, or the inflation in cost of goods & services, is a pretty huge number compounded over the decades since most countries moved away from the gold standard.
It's 5-10% pa for developing countries and 0-5% pa for developed ones like the US (excl Japan)
But you are right that cash transactions are otherwise free of any intermediary taking a % on every transaction.
But that's because Govts have the freedom to virtually charge any amount by way the sa
seriously? (Score:1)
This strikes me as a ridiculous statement.
Re: seriously? (Score:2)
Your statement strikes me as more ridiculous than the statement to which it is referring. What's ridiculous about 8M Indians with $1.4B in Bitcoin?
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Re: seriously? (Score:2)
Re:A summary: 1 BTC 1 kg Gold (Score:2)
Ya, i know how valuable BTCs are. I had 8 bitcoins around 2011, mined on an office desktop PC I had hidden away under my desk after removing the monitor, since they issued me a laptop in 2010. Worth half a dollar each technically but no one, absolutely no one was accepting BTCs those days.
That headless PC only ran BTC and seti@home 24/7 for 1-2 years. And downloads that I would vnc in and put there.
Then I repurposed it into some linux server that would run DHCP and serve up bootable images over the network
Silly (Score:1)
Good. (Score:2)
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