When Bitcoin became hype on global financial markets, the Indian government took a 180-degree different step. Reuters Sunday (14/3/2021) reported the Indian government will ban all types of activities related to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
A Draft of the Bill (Bill) has been prepared, and one of the sources with knowledge of this believes the bill will be ratified in law.
In the bill, all activities related to Bitcoin and the like are prohibited. Perpetrators will be given 6 months to liquidate the assets associated with Bitcoin, after which if they still own the cryptocurrency they will be subject to penalties in the form of fines.
Even in a government panel discussion in 2019, it even recommended 10 years in prison for people who do bitcoin mining, owning, selling, transferring or all kinds of activities related to Cryptocurrencies.
However, officials quoted by Reuters declined to provide information on the details of the Cryptocurrency bill, whether it could be jailed or how well it would be charged.
If realized, India will be the first major country to implement strict rules regarding Cryptocurrencies. China Although it prohibits Cryptocurrency activities, it does not impose sanctions on the perpetrators.
The Central Bank of India (Reserve Bank of India / RBI) has been paying attention for a long time to so-called crypto funding for criminal activity, in the absence of regulatory controls.
The RBI in 2018 banned banks from conducting activities related to cryptocurrencies. But the ban was lifted by Pad last year after the Crypto exchange pulled up at the Supreme Court.
A few years ago, many considered cryptocurrencies to be just scams for use in money laundering activities. Especially seeing the movements that have extreme volatility, rising and falling very sharply in a short time.
However, since last year Bitcoin was even popular after institutional investors started to include it in portfolios. Then the company started investing in Bitcoin. At the same time, the crime rate in Cryptocurrencies has also dropped dramatically.
Report from Crypto Intelligence Company, CipherTrace, shows losses from theft, hacking, and fraud in the world of cryptocurrency in 2020 decreased 57% in 2020. In 2019, the loss rate due to crime in the Crypto market reached US $ 4.5 billion, while in 2020 amounting to US $ 1.9 billion.
Fraud is still the biggest criminal offense in the Crypto market, followed by theft.
"Hacking theft on the Crypto Exchange continued to decline after institutional investors entered and adopted stronger security measures," said Dave Jevans, CEO of Chipertrace, in an interview with Reuters in late January.
Meanwhile, Coindesk, which received data from analytical company Coinfirk, reported that throughout 2020 the value of crimes in the Kritpo currency reached US $ 10.5 billion.
Of the total, 67.8% were cases of embezzlement and fraud. Meanwhile, crimes in second place are on the black market, and drug trafficking at 18.4%. In addition, there is also use for terrorism funds even though the value is less than 0.1%.
