Countering the recent enforcement enquiries on two of the Bitcon traders in Ahmedabad and one in Tumkur/Bangalore, some of the operators in Bitcoin community have tried to organize themselves into an interest group so as to take up their case with the regulators.
In this connection it appears that one such group “Bitcoin Alliance of India” lead by Satvik Vishwanath who was the main organzier of the recent Global Bitcoin conference in India is conducting a press conference in Mumbai on 4th of January 2014. Mr Nishit Desai an advocate of Mumbai is assisting the group. The group has also given a press release to explain the Bitcoin concept for the information of the regulators.
A copy of the press release is available here:
In addition to this Bitcoin Alliance there is another group “Bitcoin Foundation of India” guided by Mr Pavan Duggal in Delhi.
Certain persons are also in touch with the undersigned in Bangalore and organizing themselves as another group.
It is good that many stakeholders have shown interest in getting together and representing their cause to the regulators. In due course these different groups may find a way to coordinate their activity in the form of a federation.
In the meantime while Naavi will provide his assistance to any group which seeks assistance, personal focus for Naavi will be to develop a private regulatory framework for Bitcoin operators which ultimately helps the regulators to find a way to work with the industry in a mutually beneficial manner.
Naavi beilieves that there is a need for two types of Bitcoin related group activity. The first would be an alliance to support the business promotion. The present alliances fall into this category. The second type of a group of professionals who may presently be not associated with the Bitcoin industry but are otherwise involved in Finance, Technology and Law. This “Techno Legal Financial Group” is considered desirable to develop the “Voluntary Regulatory Framework” for Bitcoin operators such as “Miners”, “Traders”, “Merchants”, “Exchange Gateways” and any other service providers.
The objective is to ensure that the regulators and the community would be able to find a middle path that is beneficial to the economy. To his extent this group should be able to work with both the commercial alliances as well as the regulators. A suitable format for such a set up is being contemplated.
P.S: Naavi has been invited to be a member of Bitcoin Alliance of India. However he is not yet a member as reported in the The Hindu.
Naavi
A Society/Trust/Alliance for bitcoin is necessary, at the same time, we need to think about other crypto-currencies cloned from bitcoin protocol.
It should also be noted that bitcoin has advantages, but there are some disadvantages, if it is accepted as it is by Indians.
I assume that India has 50,000 users of bitcoins and about 5000 – 10000 bitcoins. These came in India from different sources:
1. mining 30%
2. buying from mtgox, btc-e 60%
3. earning 10%
If we buy bitcoins from outside India, our economy will have a major set back, worse than gold.
What we need is, Industry should come up with setting up mining of virtual currencies with legit laws and guidelines from the government.
Thus we do not spend on foreign exchange in buying them.
We should promote an Indian bitcoin exchange and should also legit bitcoin type virtual currency to be traded only in India. We can modify the protocol for doing so. All Indian users should use the new client to transfer and exchange virtual currencies.
Any international transaction should be affected to blockchain and Government should be informed.