Jamie Dimon is at it again, currently on a visit to India he reiterated his stand on Bitcoin stating that governments are going to close them down. He had a meeting with Indian PM Narendra Modi today.
Dimon praised the Indian leadership for its bold move of demonetisation(wherein within 3 hours 86% of the circulating currency was rendered invalid for any transaction). Well for me personally it was little trouble but you have to consider that I live in urban India with access to a credit card so I could manage to go cashless for a few days until things settled down. The brunt of the problem was faced by my rural countrymen where most dont have access to plastic money nor do the small town merchants maintain any card swipping machines(95% of transactions are cash based).
Now coming back to Mr Dimon, I firmly believe he is getting his army ready against Bitcoin(and other cryptos) as things stand now it is fairly safe to assume that China is already on board with Mr Dimon and considering the efforts of the current Indian leadership on holding its citizens under the clutches of fiat I personally feel India too will be on board soon. Here are my reasons for this
- Indian public is the largest holder of physical gold, the government has taken multiple actions already to get people out of it like
a)Providing an investment bond option wherein people will deposit gold in exchange for certificate which will bear interest, haahahah this bait as expected failed to attract the prey.
b)Indian citizen have to furnish personal details( any form of national ID) on purchase of physical Gold, this I feel is to aid in the confiscation efforts down the line.
c)The taxes levied on Gold purchase has increased very rapidly over the last 3 years, this is simply an effort to discourage fresh purchase.
With Indian people finding out that Bitcoin is an option free themselves from fiat, the government wants to stamp on it, even before Mr Dimon set his foot here the government was on its way to get Bitcoin. The Indian tax authorities have expressed money laundering concerns with Bitcoin(absolute nonsense all exchanges in India requires you to do KYC with national and tax ids). In fact the Supreme court here has formed an special team to draft a report on suggestions on how to curb trading in Bitcoin, the committee will publish its findings within a month.
And now with Mr Dimon beating the drum dont be surprised on a ban on Bitcoin in India, with close to 35%(China+India) of world population banned from participating in it Bitcoin may be set for some tough times ahead.
But as recently pointed out by Jeff Berwick, Bitcoin is the Honey Badger of money and I believe like the honey badger Bitcoin will be fearless and persistent in its effort to knock out the fiat.