Is Bitcoin Illegal?
2 min read
While the world is going crazy about Bitcoin India is all set to ban it along with many other cryptocurrencies! Bitcoin surged as high as $60,000 on Saturday lifted the price by over 1000% than last year. It has a market capitalization of $1.1 trillion!
While the world is endorsing Bitcoin with people like Elon Musk investing $1.5 billion into cryptocurrencies and Master Card allowing merchants to accept selected cryptocurrencies India is still uncertain about it. A plan to launch a bill, not just banning the cryptocurrencies but also fining those who are trading or holding such currencies as their assets, is in talks.
Officials say that a window of 6 months might be given to the investors to liquidate their assets where 7 million people are believed to be holding cryptocurrencies worth close to $1 billion. But banning won’t include a complete shut on cryptocurrencies in India as clarified by FM Nirmala Sitharaman. The government might allow some windows for experiments in cryptocurrencies.
India won’t be the only country banning Cryptocurrency though, countries like China, Russia, Vietnam, Bolivia, Columbia, etc. have also banned the transaction of cryptocurrencies. But India will be the first country to criminalize holding of it as an asset! The USA on the other hand is miles ahead of such countries with Bitcoin ATMs coming on Gas Stations! An ATM using which people can buy or sell their bitcoin and can as well withdraw hard cash. Coinflip and CoinCloud are some of the operators to install such machines! As of January, there were 28,185 bitcoin ATMs in the whole of United States according to https://howmanybitcoinatms.com/
Joe Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief bill into law resulting in a $1,400 stimulus check distributed to millions of Americans. As surveyed by Deutsche Bank of 430 investors found half of them to spend their payments in the stock market which might keep the market boom ongoing.
Another survey by Mizuho Securities suggests that 10% or $40 billion of $380 billion in direct stimulus check might be invested in Bitcoin and Stocks!
