Will India’s BitCoin Miners Ever Get Legal Trading Status?

With BitCoin Mining gaining accelerated adoption throughout the world, Indian Miners are still unsure about their new–found wealth or the opportunity to earn some.

Mining for BitCoins, one of the most volatile, but highest climbing virtual currency has taken the internet world by storm. Individuals, Companies, Data Farms are busy optimizing their hardware to mine for BitCoins. Within a fortnight, the Virtual Currency jumped to US$ 1300, before settling somewhere near the Thousand Dollar Mark. This means, a single BitCoin is worth a Thousand Bucks at present! Needless to say, that’s some serious money!

Multiple Indians, realizing the huge opportunity, dove straight into the mining operations that involved solving complex mathematical equations. Interestingly, in the earlier days of BitCoin Mining, which weren’t that far back, the equations were quite simple to solve and taking advantage of the fledgling nature, many Indians became BitCoin Millionaires.

However, these virtually rich individuals can’t openly acknowledge their BitCoin wealth owing to the uncertainty surrounding the BitCoin’s legal status. The apex body for the Indian Financial System, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has left a permanent stamp of ‘Caution’ on mining, dealing or trading of BitCoins within the Indian Territory. The RBI is rightly worried about Money Laundering and Cyber Security. Interestingly, world–over, BitCoin Traders are still enthusiastically mining or trading this lucrative currency.

RBI’s fears recently became a grim reality when BitCoin related Malware was found enslaving PCs worldwide and turning them into Zombie Miners. That being said, just because there is a security risk involved, doesn’t mean RBI should out up a cautionary suspension on trading activities?

Though Indian BitCoin Miners and related companies have tentatively resumed operations, RBI’s stand is still not clear. Amidst the confusion about the legality of BitCoin, The Income Tax of India further muddled the waters by revealing its intention to tax the financial transaction arising out of trading BitCoins.

Realizing that RBI doesn’t seem interested in taking a close look at BitCoins and accepting it, an Indian NRI residing in Canada has sought clear answers and threatened RBI with legal action in case it doesn’t respond within 30 Days.

Perhaps as and when RBI decides whether BitCoins are currency, commodity, software or an electronic document, Indian BitCoin Miners could heave a sigh of relief. Until then, Trading in BitCoins doesn’t have any official status. What do think, BitCoin should be treated as and why?

Image Credit: BitCoinExaminer