Reports have it that the Indian government is preparing to include a jail term of ten years for crypto adopters in the country. The ban is expected to sweep across from crypto miners to traders. India is seemingly taking the Chinese route to prohibit cryptocurrency activities in the country. Fortunately, the ban has high chances of having the opposite effect than the one the Indian government anticipates.

As noted by Barry Silbert, the founder of Digital Currency Group and a venture capitalist:

“India ain’t messing around. This will, of course, have the opposite of the desired effect on Bitcoin awareness and interest in the country.”

It started in 2018

The uncertainty in the Indian crypto space started in 2018 when the country’s top bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released a circular forbidding financial institutions in the country from offering banking services to cryptocurrency firms.

As a result, Indian cryptocurrency exchanges went to court to challenge the RBI’s move. Unfortunately, the supreme court has been postponing the case since 2018 further hurting the Indian crypto community.

However, the RBI has denied knowledge of a bill that seeks to impose a jail term of 10 years for crypto adopters in the country. However, its denial does not mean its non-existent. Unfortunately, the central bank may be bypassed in the passing of the bill if the government is hell-bent on prohibiting cryptocurrency activities in the country.

Indians will only pay more attention to Bitcoin

Fortunately, according to Silbert, if the ten years’ jail term on crypto adopters becomes a law, it will only cause Indians to get more interested in cryptocurrencies than even when it’s made legal. The Indian government fails to recognize that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies were intended to decentralized power from the government to the people.

China, which seems to be India’s role model, has an increasing number of crypto traders although the country banned crypto trading and mining. For example, a report released this month captured that China is leading in USDT trading. Notably, Chinese traders are buying the stable coin using over-the-counter methods then using exchanges outside China to interface with other top cons like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

Bitcoin searches surge in China, India to follow

Additionally, in 2019, an analysis of Bitcoin search results showed that China is leading. The increase in Bitcoin searches in China was recorded at the same time when the price of Bitcoin started showing signs of life after the 2018 bear market. Consequently, this served as a sign that the Chinese crypto market is not dead despite the government’s harsh stand.

India may also be shocked to see its crypto market boom after it imposes a ten years’ jail term for crypto adopters. Surprisingly, India may be trying to derail the adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptos due to the power inherent in digital assets.