Are cryptocurrencies illegal in India?

It seems price manipulation happened with BitMex lately when they took down the servers for maintenance.
 
If the money is not in your hands then it never was.
I don't understand why people trust unknown companies to hold on to their Bitcoin or other crypto wallets and not do anything with those coins. Everything in those companies are closed to the outside world. If they're pumping in money, they're going to make money out of their customers.
 
6pack said:
If the money is not in your hands then it never was.
I don't understand why people trust unknown companies to hold on to their Bitcoin or other crypto wallets and not do anything with those coins. Everything in those companies are closed to the outside world. If they're pumping in money, they're going to make money out of their customers.
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That's the same for any bank or financial institution.
 
6pack said:
If the money is not in your hands then it never was.
I don't understand why people trust unknown companies to hold on to their Bitcoin or other crypto wallets and not do anything with those coins. Everything in those companies are closed to the outside world. If they're pumping in money, they're going to make money out of their customers.
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And there is no central governing authority and even the founder is not known. Anyone can come up and say that he/she invented Bitcoin system. I wonder how they manage to inflate the prices of these bitcoins and even make customers rich
 
The lack of that central governing authority is the very strength and USP of these block chain based technologies and what brings its reliability. It is the very reason these technologies are being adopted. There is no central authority to screw with the system as they wish to and when they wish to. Anybody in tech should understand why decentralized systems are built for improving reliability and resilience.

As for "if money is not in your hands, it never was", argument that holds even more true for currency, debit/credit cards, security bonds and all other forms of money we currently use. The central governing authorities can turn all that money into worthless piece of paper and plastic anytime they want to. You only have to go back a couple of years to that in action in India at a small scale.

And these very central governing authorities across countries are the ones trying to destroy the Crypto currencies in the bud because they cannot exert influence over their every aspect of their functioning and hence cannot get ownership of your money fully. Having ownership of the money would also mean control and ownership of the people. Right now, all the money that you think you own is actually owned by the central governing authority and they want to keep it that that way so that they can retain control and ownership over you too.
 
Zaibatsu said:
And there is no central governing authority and even the founder is not known. Anyone can come up and say that he/she invented Bitcoin system. I wonder how they manage to inflate the prices of these bitcoins and even make customers rich
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A central authority a good thing till it is not. Try some wrong-think and see:

https://twitter.com/julianassange/status/919247873648283653?lang=en

More recently, read what happened to Robert Spencer, the man who runs JihadWatch.

If crypto can do to currency what the Internet did to news, sign me up.
 
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dpandey said:
A central authority a good thing till it is not. Try some wrong-think and see:

https://twitter.com/julianassange/status/919247873648283653?lang=en

More recently, read what happened to Robert Spencer, the man who runs JihadWatch.

If crypto can do to currency what the Internet did to news, sign me up.
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I'm not saying it's bad. I would've got it myself. And I don't wanna get involved in some kind of argument about Bitcoins lol. It's just that I read a news article on yahoo dot in saying a guy got forced to transfer his bitcoins from his wallet allegedly by policemen(I know it sounds crazy but I can't find the article link). Also there are thousands of bitcoin frauds happening everyday, accounts being hacked etc How can you say that it is the safest investment?

Edit: Found it- https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...th-rs-12-cr/story-qY20AbWcLG3ZUzPuxEl5DI.html

Gujarat criminal investigation department (CID) on Sunday booked eight policemen and arrested two of them on charges of abducting and forcing a Surat businessman to transfer 200 Bitcoins worth Rs 12 crore, while also demanding a ransom of Rs 32 crore to free him. The CID also booked a lawyer in the case.

All eight policemen are a part of Amreli district’s local crime branch unit, said director general of police, CID (crime), Ashish Bhatia.

“Two policemen — constables Babu Der and Vijay Vadher — were arrested today. All other accused have gone underground. Efforts are on to nab them,” Bhatia added.

Businessman Shailesh Bhatt had complained to the CID against the Amreli policemen on February 23. Amreli local crime branch unit inspector Anant Patel is among the nine accused.




According to Bhatia, the Amreli policemen called the businessman to Gandhinagar on February 11, where they abducted him and took him to a farmhouse.

Then the policemen made him transfer 200 Bitcoins to an unidentified account, said Bhatia.

The Amreli policemen released him the same day after he assured them that he would give them Rs 32 crore through hawala, Bhatia added.

Bhatia said the CID had so far not found any proof of Bitcoin transfer, but there was evidence of abduction, illegal confinement, threats and the ransom demand.

Bitcoin is a payment platform that functions on digital currency. It is touted as the first decentralised peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by internet users. After hitting a peak value of $20,000 in December last year, the Bitcoin has lost more than 50% of its value this year. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are facing increased scrutiny from regulators around the world, with the Reserve Bank of India recently tightening rules to discourage their use.

The CID is investigating information that the businessman gave Rs 75 lakh to the Amreli policemen.

Bhatia said it was not clear why the accused targeted Bhatt. The CID is assessing information that the policemen targeted the businessman after getting an application that he allegedly stole Bitcoins from someone.

“Even if there was an application against Bhatt, it should have been forwarded to the superintendent of police or some higher authority for investigation,” said Bhatia.

The CID has formed a special investigation team to probe the allegations against the policemen and the lawyer.
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There are an orders of magnitude higher number of frauds happening with conventional banking systems. And most of the frauds with crypto currencies have the humans themselves to blame or as the weak link most of the times. In regular banking/financial systems, the systems themselves and the authority controlling the bank or people associated to it can be culprits.
 
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Maybe, whenever somebody more sensible than the current crop of Congress/BJP riffraff rabble with more things on their mind than the vote bank for next election, take up the govt. But don't hold your breath for it. The RBI or state Govt's may ban use of debit/credit cards on certain sites, but they can't stop things like gambling. You cannot stop something by banning it. There are private online poker rooms and other gambling gigs running in the country all the same.

Also, there are a number of European sports betting operators like bet365 and Unibet operating in India. There are things to consider though.

http://www.sportsbettingindia.in/laws.html

My own companies primary brands being regulated, don't allow access from India, but a number of Indians do apparently use them via broker networks in Europe.

Crypto-currencies have mixed reactions in gambling market. They are a definite taboo for regulated markets though. For example, in France, we are required by regulation to send details of every user's monetary transactions on the platform as they happen to the regulators servers. They get details of every deposit, withdrawal, bet and winnings/losses
 
Lord Nemesis said:
The lack of that central governing authority is the very strength and USP of these block chain based technologies and what brings its reliability. It is the very reason these technologies are being adopted. There is no central authority to screw with the system as they wish to and when they wish to. Anybody in tech should understand why decentralized systems are built for improving reliability and resilience.
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Very strength and very weakness. That anonymity gives crypto trading institutions freedom to do what they want without anyone being any wiser. What happens to all the coins lost in hacks and if some exchange closes down suddenly? I know the same can be said for banks, but the banks will at least give 1 lakh back. People will have to write off everything if they lose bitcoins. Plus you say govt meddling is bad. Just look at crypto prices and the see saw they are going through. Price is not stable in it due to all the punters and wannabe rich tomorrow people betting their life's savings. It's even worse than the stock market.

The main problem I see with bitcoin or any other coin is they are too limited in number to be used large scale. And the method in which a mathematical calculation derives coins is even weird. Who governs it? That means only those rich people who have asic miners and pay huge electricity bills can mine coins and not everyone. People are talking like its the next best thing to bread and butter, but you've already left out a majority of the population without access to gpu or miners or those who don't even have computers. What do they do? Buy coins at $5000 when they don't have money? Someone smart in maths will come tomorrow and might come up with a shortcut and mine a few hundred coins per day. Then what? Will the price rise even more or drop down? No one knows.
 
@6pack - Don't mix central authority and anonymity. Also bitcoins are not supposed to be kept in an exchange. keeping coins in an exchange completely kills the point of bitcoin.
Price instability is to be expected for something so new and so so different.
Who governs it? That actually is very very interesting, but not easy to explain (for me) . Broadly speaking its: users of bitcoin

Also you can buy fractions of bitcoins worth Rs 100 / 50 whatever.
 
So far Royal Panda is working with indian debit cards. And I forgot to mention that gambling is legal in Goa and there are lot of casinos is Goa aswell. So it's not technically a forbidden act
 
I think that the major issue for many governments is question how to deal with crypto currencies. They don’t want to accept it as a official payment mean, but still, in the free economies there is absolutely no way to put an halt on trading crypto as long as it is treated as non-material asset
 
Btw guys I wanna know some list of relevant sites where I can use my Skrill funds like iTunes/app store gift cards which can be used in India since we all know transferring money directly from Skrill to bank account is risky AF
 
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