New Anti-Crypto Bill in India Will Push Crypto Community to Adopt Privacy Coins XMR/ZEC: Binance CEO

India has been largely against the use of cryptocurrency, and there’s even a bill presently proposed that follows that idea. While there’s hope that this bill will act as a deterrent to locals from using cryptocurrency entirely, the CEO of Binance believes that it will lead to a different result. Posting to Twitter, CEO Changpeng Zhao said that the adoption of privacy coins will likely increase should a bill of this magnitude be passed.

That Bill in India will really push privacy coin adoption forward.

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 7, 2019

Zhao commented that the decision to implement this bill would make some major waves in the industry, considering that India is the home to about 20% of the population around the world.

If the anti-crypto bill comes through, there is a 10-year jail sentence at stake, which will be imposed on anyone who decides to mine, generate, hold, sell, transfer, dispose of, issue, or deal cryptocurrency. Basically, this bill would make it impossible for anyone to even hold cryptocurrency, let alone engage in mining operations or host a crypto exchange. Although Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has denied any knowledge of this ban.

According to reports from CCN, Zhao is only right in a fraction of what he is predicting. There is a chance that cryptocurrency investors and traders will end up choosing a privacy coin like Zcash or Monero since there will no way for the government to end up prosecuting them over what cannot be seen. The transactions, though private, are not anonymous in the slightest. If the local law enforcement agencies manage to view these transactions, the local traders would be discovered.

While Zhao may be right about this transition to privacy coins, CCN says that he is wrong to assume that authorities will sit idly by if privacy coins skyrocket in their activities. Once the authorities realize that the traders have been able to continue their activities, there is a fairly high chance that newer and more strict regulations that would ban the use of these tokens as well.

The idea that further restrictions would be imposed is not unlikely, considering that there are already bans in the works. There is already a ban imposed by the Reserve Bank of India that keeps the banks from offering services to businesses that are already tied in with the cryptocurrency industry. The order from RBI was challenged in court, and a decision has yet to be reached at this point.

If there ever becomes a time when India decides to ban privacy coins, there would not actually be much searching to establish a precedent. In fact, crypto-friendly Japan has already shown how it is possible for this to be done, and the Financial Services Agency (FSA) has urged exchanges in the country to delist privacy coins like Monero, Dash, and Zcash. Explaining their decision, the FSA said that the anonymity of these coins would make it possible to participate in money laundering.