Potential India Crypto Ban, Worldwide Darknet and Virgil Griffith’s Saga Continues

02/08/21 • 28 min

In this episode, Anna Baydakova, Tanzeel Akhtar and Danny Nelson discuss possible crypto restrictions in India, fresh darknet market research from Chainalysis and the newest chapter in Virgil Griffith’s North Korea saga.

Will India ban crypto? The move by the government, rumoured for months, may be not as bad as expected. For now, it’s only about illegal activities involving crypto and using it to pay for things, as Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur told the nation last week.

India had cracked down on cryptocurrencies: In April 2018, the Reserve Bank of India barred India’s banks from serving crypto exchanges and related businesses. The ban was successfully challenged in India’s Supreme Court and lifted last March. Whether you can really ban crypto in any form is another question, though.

As for illegal use cases, Chainalysis new report on darknet markets and crypto says Russia, the U.S., Ukraine and China are the countries that pump the most money into the illegal goods marketplaces. Per the previous Chainalysis’ report on global crypto adoption, Ukraine and Russia also lead the global retail adoption of crypto.

Does it mean most of the crypto adoption in these countries are “dark”? One thing is clear: Both these countries are user bases of Hydra, the world’s most successful drug marketplaces, pocketing about 75% of the entire darknet markets’ revenue, Chainalysis said.

In the meantime, the court case of Ethereum dev Virgil Griffith is moving along – and it doesn’t look good. During the latest hearing, on Jan. 27, the judge rejected Griffith’s motion to dismiss charges he violated U.S. sanctions law in North Korea. Griffith’s lawyers’ argument that his speaking at a conference in North Korea is not equal to providing “services” to the sanctioned country apparently did not convince Judge Kevin Castel. Free speech or helping bad guys do bad things? A jury will decide in Griffith’s case.

Stories mentioned in this episode:

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Stories mentioned in this episode:

Did you enjoy the show? We would love to hear what you think. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your preferred service and talk to us directly via email at [email protected].

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Previous Episode

The Small Guys Rebel Against their Big Brother Hedge Funds

In this episode, Anna Baydakova, Tanzeel Akhtar and Danny Nelson discuss what the GameStop stock market chaos can teach crypto, why the Bank of International Settlements is pitching central bank digital currencies (CBDC) instead of crypto, and the privacy concerns around China’s digital yuan.

The big story for the week involves the Reddit-based trading community called WallStreetBets that has been causing equities to behave like cryptocurrencies – very volatile. WallStreetBets have wreaked chaos in traditional markets after pumping GameStop stock up by nearly 900% in five days to around $380. Hedge fund Melvin Capital Management suffered heavy losses by betting against video game retailer GameStop.

Does crypto fix this?

The digital yuan was front-and-center in yesterday’s CBDC survey by the BIS, better known as the bank for central banks. Researchers there said 20% of the global population will likely be using general purpose digital fiat in the next three years. What they didn’t say was the identity of the country with 18% of the global population.... China!

In the meantime, security researchers started paying attention to potential risks of the digital yuan for the users outside of China. The Center for New American Security issued a report on how the Chinese Communist Party might get access to the financial data of people worldwide including, potentially, Americans who will be using the Chinese system in the future.

Would you use something like that, and do you care about privacy of your transactions?

Stories mentioned in this episode:

CoinDesk: GameStop Investing Craze ‘Proof of Concept’ for Bitcoin Success, Says Scaramucci
CoinDesk: GameStop-Style Revolts Spread, Drawing Attention of White House, Nasdaq; TD Ameritrade Restricts Trading
Reddit: An Open Letter to Melvin Capital, CNBC, Boomers, and WSB
CoinDesk: BIS Chief Blasts Bitcoin’s Viability, Prompting Blowback From Advocates
BIS Plans Platform for Testing Central Bank Digital Currencies in Cross-Border Payments https://www.coindesk.com/bis-plans-platform-for-testing-central-bank-digital-currencies-in-cross-border-payments
CoinDesk: Geopolitics at Stake in US Response to China’s Digital Yuan: Report
Center for New American Security: China’s Digital Currency. Adding Financial Data to Digital Authoritarianism
CoinDesk: WEF Davos: Bank of England Governor Insists Digital Payments (but Not Crypto) Are Sticking Around
CoinDesk: WEF Davos: Silver Lake Co-Founder Tells Davos Cash Is Used Far More in Crime Than Bitcoin
Colombia, Estonia Upload the Bitcoin White Paper to Their Governmental Websites https://www.coindesk.com/colombia-estonia-bitcoin-whitepaper

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Next Episode

Happy Bull’s Year, North Korean Hackers!

In this episode, Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson discuss North Korea reportedly stealing your crypto to create nuclear weapons, Tesla rattling markets at an opportune time and Nigeria trying to ban crypto.

Starting Feb. 12, in the Chinese calendar, we are in the year of the ox, or bull; at least for now, things are looking quite bullish for crypto. Usually, Chinese users would massively sell bitcoin ahead of the New Year but the current rally is being mostly driven by institutions, not retail buyers in Asia. So it looks like the “To the Moon” show must go on!

A United Nations expert panel said North Korea used the money it extorted by cyber attacks to fund nuclear weapons development. The panel said that according to its investigations, North Korean regime-linked hackers worked all through 2020 and made the money now funding weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. According to Chainalysis, the hackers used DeFi infrastructure, over-the-counter brokers and mixers to sell their crypto. So will we end up with a bit of North Korean hacker crypto one day?

Tesla hyped the bitcoin market right around the time some bad news came out of China. In February, Tesla’s annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission included the news the company put an aggregate of $1.5 billion into bitcoin. Just before that filing several Chinese government agencies publicly questioned Tesla cars’ quality and safety. Coincidence?

Nigeria is trying to curb crypto adoption, but that is not so easy. In early February, the country’s central bank sent a letter to financial institutions ordering them to shut down all bank accounts associated with cryptocurrency trading platforms. Result: Binance halted deposits in Nigeria. As a result, Nigerians turned to peer-to-peer trading platforms. Is this actually good for crypto adoption? We’ll see.

Stories mentioned in this episode:

Did you enjoy the show? We would love to hear what you think. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your preferred service and talk to us directly via email at [email protected].

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.