DELHI : Panel Examining Bitcoin, Other Cryptocurriencies Submits Reports
A committee appointed by the government last year to examine issues related to cryptocurrency has submitted its report, a senior law ministry official said on Thursday. The panel is also examining pros and cons including launching an own cryptocurrency.
Addressing the ‘2nd Global Summit P2P Digital Asset System,’ organised by ASSOCHAM, Additional Secretary in the Department of Legal Affairs Anadee Nath Mishra said the government is also looking into the allegations that people who had black money had diverted the same to cryptocurrencies in India during demonetization.
It was reported that during the period of demonetization, some people used illegal money in bitcoins and that is believed to be the main factor behind the sudden increase in the prices of bitcoins.
There has been a phenomenal increase in recent times in the price of virtual currencies (VCs) including bitcoin, in India and globally.
The VCs don’t have intrinsic value and are not backed by any kind of assets. The price of bitcoin and other VCs therefore is a matter of mere speculation resulting in spurt and volatility.
There is real risk of investment bubble of the type in ponzi schemes which can result in sudden and prolonged crash exposing investors, especially retail consumers losing their hard earned money. Consumers need to be alert and extremely cautious as to avoid getting trapped in such ponzi schemes, Mishra was quoted as saying.
The VCs are stored in digital or electronic format, making them vulnerable to hacking, loss of password, malware attack, which may also result in permanent loss of money.
BENGALURU: Bitcoin Effect
Cryptocurrency exchange platforms in India have a huge backlog of potential users waiting to be verified for registration. Waiting periods have gone up from a week to 20 days. The prices of digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ripple, and Litecoin have surged over the past year, encouraging many to get into the trading of these currencies.
Bengaluru-based Unocoin used to see 1,000 registrations a day in December 2016. Last month, it averaged 10,000 registrations a day. Its overall user base is now close to 10 million. Coinsecure has a message on its website warning users that their KYC (know your customer) process will take time. It is getting around 4,000 registrations a day. The platform has disabled its payment gateway to stop users from paying money before verification. Unocoin, too, has warned users about delays. Others like Zebpay are seeing a similar surge in user registrations and transactions. ZebPay has touched 2 million users.
A person can invest in bitcoins for as low as Rs 1,000. Once one logs into the website of a cryptocurrency exchange platform, the platform verifies the details of the user. The funds are then transferred and a digital wallet is created for the user to store the bitcoins. Currently, the price of one bitcoin is Rs 10 lakh, but at its peak last month, it was being sold for as high as Rs 19 lakh.
Investors Pumping $300,000 into cryptocurrency initial coin offerings
Investors are flushing capital at an average rate of USD 300,000 per second into the initial coin offerings across the world, a research by Ernst & Young has revealed. The research which studied 372 initial coin offerings (ICOs) around the world found that the offerings raised USD 3.7 billion in funds, twice the volume of venture capital (VC) investment in blockchain projects.The US leads the investments into the ICOs with USD 1 billion, followed by Russia and China with investments of over USD 300 million each. The US is also the leader in the number of ICO projects, with 1,031 of them originating in the country. Russia and Singapore with 310 and 260 ICO projects come second and third, respectively. Mainland China (256) and Hong Kong (196) wraps the top five.
As Indian Government Awaits For Expert Advice, Bitcoin Is Back On Track
After Japan and PayPal’s co-founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund threw their weight behind Bitcoin, buying Bitcoins worth $15 Mn-20 Mn, the cryptocurrency is back on track. The cryptocurrency is currently trading at $16.5K, registering 20% surge since January 1, 2018.
Facebook To Explore Cryptocurrency : Mark Zuckerberg
What’s in a Bitcoin? Now, social media baron Mark Zuckerberg wants to explore the power the cryptocurrency, as a technology and also as an important means to empower decentralization. The Facebook founder wants to explore how cryptocurrency can be enabled in Facebook services.
As China Stamps Out Bitcoin Miners, India Sees Opportunity
Indian cryptocurrency geeks have been offered to set up mining centres after the Chinese government ordered closing down of bitcoin mining in the country.
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