bitcoin

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• Bitcoin Ban Means Massive Brain Drain for India, Crypto Industry Warns - Cointelegraph
• $250K Bitcoin Price Prediction Is Now 'Conservative,' Says Tim Draper - Cointelegraph
• Joe Lubin: Only Conceptions of Bitcoin and Ethereum Were 'Immaculate' - Cointelegraph

Bitcoin Ban Means Massive Brain Drain for India, Crypto Industry Warns - Cointelegraph Posted: 16 Sep 2019 05:09 AM PDT India is seeing the first signs of an anticipated brain drain, as the government mulls stark legislation that would criminalize domestic cryptocurrency investments. A Sept. 16 Economic Times report has taken the measure of industry sentiment on the ground, as a proposed blanket ban — currently still in the form of draft legislation — awaits its formal review process by lawmakers.  "The first large democracy" to ban crypto As the Economic Times notes, the draft Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019 has proposed a 10-year prison sentence for anyone who "mines, generates, holds, sells, transfers, disposes of, issues or deals in cryptocurrencies." The severity of the proposed penalty and the extreme position reflected in the document — whether or not and in what form it eventually becomes national law — is already prompting local crypto businesses to take pre-emptive measures to protect themselves.  Rahul Jain — an employee at formerly domestic exchange Bitbns — told the Economic Times: "As a startup from India, we always wanted to serve from India, but this recent complication has made it difficult for domestic crypto exchanges to operate their businesses in India. So, we are now an Estonia-based company, and any Indian law to criminalize crypto will not impact us." Nischal Shetty, CEO and founder of well-known Indian exchange WazirX has meanwhile argued that the proposed bill is poised to erode the wealth of over 5 million Indians who own "crypto assets worth thousands of crores."  The executive said that the arbitrary decision to criminalize crypto-asset investment would destabilize existing businesses that have been operating legitimately and make the country an unfortunate pioneer in its role as "the first large democracy to ban an innovative technology such as crypto." Missing out on a $10 trillion industry While local opinions differ as to whether or how the bill will evolve into a definitive statutory shape, the Economic Times' sources were unanimous in viewing the summer's developments as a retrograde move for the country. Shetty noted that: "As a country largely reliant on the services sector, India will lose its edge as a technological power if the ban on crypto is enforced. Shunning this industry will mean massive job losses and a brain drain [...] Crypto is predicted to be a $10 trillion industry in the next five years, and if we are to achieve our Prime Minister's goal being a $5 trillion economy, then crypto is integral to that vision." As reported this August, Sidharth Sogani — CEO of crypto and blockchain research firm Crebaco Global Inc —- has forecast that India will lose around $12.9 billion worth of market if cryptocurrency is eventually banned in the country.

$250K Bitcoin Price Prediction Is Now 'Conservative,' Says Tim Draper - Cointelegraph Posted: 16 Sep 2019 04:08 AM PDT Major Bitcoin (BTC) bull Tim Draper now thinks that his own prediction that BTC price will hit $250,000 by 2022 may be understating the power of Bitcoin. BTC price to grow with adoption In an interview with crypto news network Blocktv on Sept. 13, the famous American venture capital investor has once again expressed his bullish stance to Bitcoin, forecasting the soon-to-come mass global adoption that will push the price of Bitcoin higher and higher. Draper stated in the interview: "$250,000 means that Bitcoin would then have about a 5% market share of the currency world and I think that maybe understating the power of Bitcoin." Bitcoin still too complex  According to Draper, people are still preferring fiat money over Bitcoin so far because fiat money seems to be an easier option to pay for services. The VC billionaire argued that Bitcoin's lack of ease of use is the main impediment of the cryptocurrency to the mass adoption to date, claiming that "engineers have not made it that easy enough for everyone to use Bitcoin." However, in the longer term, people will have Bitcoin as the currency of choice because fiat currencies are subject to political influence due to its centralized nature and they will depreciate in value due to a natural inflation rate, Draper said.  He also reiterated his stance that Argentina will be a great market for Bitcoin as a number of local entrepreneurs tend to lose their fortune in local fiat currency due to currency manipulation and devaluation. Still, even in countries such as the United States, people will generally want a currency that is trusted and decentralized over a currency controlled by entities like the Federal Reserve, which can be very political, Draper concluded. Draper's new claims follow his recent forecast that there might be a slight delay in Bitcoin's path to a $250,000 price.  On Aug. 9, the investor predicted that Bitcoin price will hit the threshold by Q1 2023. On Sept. 9, Draper joined the board of directors of EOS-based decentralized application (DApp) firm MakeSense Labs.

Joe Lubin: Only Conceptions of Bitcoin and Ethereum Were 'Immaculate' - Cointelegraph Posted: 16 Sep 2019 04:00 AM PDT Ethereum (ETH) co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin has characterized both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum's conceptions as being "immaculate."  Lubin made his remark during a panel with Vitalik Buterin and Yoni Assia at the Ethereal Summit Tel Aviv on Sept. 15, according to live reporting from eToro analyst Mati Greenspan on Twitter. Twin titans To a seasoned ear, Lubin's comment pointedly reproduces a phrase previously used by staunch Bitcoin maximalists in reference to the conceptual and technological elegance of Satoshi's invention and to the equally shrewd choice of timing for the publication of its white paper.  His sleight of hand in extending this characterization to Ethereum's founding could rattle the Bitcoiners' cage, with Lubin's tacit point preempted and contextualized by his co-panelists Assia and Buterin, the first of whom remembered how: "Back then [in 2013], the Bitcoin community was very maximalist and said that things like tokenization were impossible." To which Buterin added:  "That was very disheartening because I thought we were all on the same team. In a lot of ways though it was fine because it gave us some breathing room. Because there's already Bitcoin as a store of value but for Ethereum it gave us a more clear use case because we didn't have to try to be hard money." All three panelists are reported to have positioned themselves non-tribally as "decentralized protocol maximalists." Ether's annunciation  Bitcoin maximalism is, especially in the current cryptocurrency market climate, alive and well — with many analysts isolating the top coin from other cryptocurrencies and focusing instead on its interaction with the traditional financial sector at a time of significant macroeconomic upheaval. Against this somewhat fashionable signalling of the death knell for altcoins, a summer 2019 report from institutional crypto exchange San Francisco Open Exchange proposed that Ether is arguably no longer an altcoin as it "is coming into its own as a blockchain that is publicly recognized as an asset on its own terms, much like Bitcoin." Many cryptocurrency traders remain more skeptical, as Ether continues to hover below the $200 mark. Earlier today, technical analyst and trader Michaël van de Poppe quipped on Ethereum finally showing bullish signs: "So, does anybody know how the flippening is going?  Not even close, right?  Good old days with the potential flip of $ETH / $BTC."

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