India's Internet Association ends crypto advocacy to do something more productive

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) has dissolved its subcommittee dedicated to crypto-boosterism after deciding it should focus its resources elsewhere. The decision means the end for the Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council (BCAC) – an organisation that formed in 2019 and aimed to create a regulated …

[Len]

Russian capital flight

It is unclear why the Kremlin and its masters are Putin the boot in to crypto. Pundits have suggested read-only techno-rubles could be an instrument that might help Moscow evade the many sanctions imposed because of its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is suffering from tremendous 'capital flight' at the moment as Russians with some money try to get their Rubles out of the country and into Dollars or Euros. Moscow is actively pursuing capital controls to stem this.

Cryptocurrencies work quite well for shifting large amounts across borders if legal routes are limited. I suspect the Kremlin decided that the downside of capital flight is greater than the upside of sanction busting. They could be right.

[James Anderson]

Solution in search of a problem

We already pay for almost everything digitally. direct Debit for the leccy bill, Credit Card for airline tickets, Online Banking for the gym subscription, bonking the debit card at the supermarket checkout. About the only time I use cash is in bars and restaurants as I like to have some change to leave the staff a tip that won’t be snaffled by the management.

All of this is “digital” and it’s reasonably secure and reasonably energy efficient.

The only real use case for crypto currency is Money Laundering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Solution in search of a problem

A standard cryptocurrency is pretty poor for money laundering. There are those which are engineered for anonymity but, by design, most are more traceable than fiat.

This is particularly scary for officials, since members of the public would be able to find out that, for example, the payments for a nice yacht holiday taken by a particular politician weren't made from said politician's personal wallet but, by a strange coincidence, a large payment was made by a contractor with an even larger government contract.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Solution in search of a problem

Your a bit naive.

I'm presuming you haven't heard of tornado cash and other tumbling methods.

who pretty much only use is hiding crypto transactions, and only purpose is money laundering for ransomware and thieves.

Crypto just needs to fuck right off. it has no real world use other than scams and thieving.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Solution in search of a problem

>"only purpose is money laundering for ransomware and thieves."

Or providing a store of funds for those women who live in countries where they aren't allowed bank accounts, or people living with a domestic abuser who can't open up a separate bank account to gather funds to escape, or people living in circumstances where they cannot recieve money by other means to help them survive. But like you said, these people can just

>"fuck right off"

because, hey, what do they matter?

[Howard Sway]

Indian crypto outfits have lamented the end of the Council

Consider it practice for when you're lamenting the end of your magic internet money businesses when it all collapses.

[iron]

> the globally distributed decentralized finance community.

Which is neither distributed nor decentralized.

The blockchain is far to big and unwieldy to process on a phone so all crypto apps use the same 2 APIs. A simultaneous attack on those two providers would completely destroy the crypto world.