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Comment by searchableguy | Hacker News Reader

For Indians, mullvad and others will not be available soon.

New order require mandatory logging and storage of customer details for 5 years for digital infra providers post June.

https://entrackr.com/2022/04/it-ministry-orders-vpn-provider...

I wonder how they plan to impose compliance on entities that have no legal presence in India, accept cryptocurrency payments, and take no PII as part of the signup process - all of which I believe apply to Mullvad.

They are gonna ban self custodial wallet which are rare in India anyway. So exchange will monitor and KYC anyone you transfer crypto coins to.

Impose a penalty on the citizen side as well.

Monero users are more likely to be the type to use a cold wallet, and a ban on cold wallets is unenforceable (especially for Monero, where transactions can't be traced) as it's kind of like holding cash, except that there isn't anything to be found physically.

The hard part is getting the monero in the first place to put in your cold wallet. The main two options are (1) use an exchange, all of which are either being monitors or blacklisted by india (2) exchange cash in person, good luck doing that in a country that is actively suppressing it

There are platforms like Bisq, which can be used to purchase BTC (although you need a small starting amount of BTC as a minimum security deposit) and then used to swap into Monero. It is both tricky to monitor and difficult to block as it works over Tor. Although I suppose having to go for something so 'exotic' just to privately buy crypto is in itself going to turn away a lot of people.

I thought it doesn't matter if it is known you bought Moreno. When you spend it, that spend can't be traced back to you? Wasn't that the whole point of Moreno?

But if India makes it illegal to obtain monero, then you won't get to that second step of getting to use it. Controlling the on-ramps seems to be the easiest way to regulate crypto, as we saw when Canada started cracking down back in February

Sure. But is purchasing Moreno actually blocked anywhere with a kyc compliant on ramp?

Not that I know of, but if monero was illegal then using a KYC on-ramp to buy it isn't the smartest move. Though perhaps I'm misunderstanding you

If you're able to exchange rupee for another currency, you can always mail the cash to them. I admittedly don't know how feasible or how difficult that is to do though.

Mullvad accepts cash via mail

Its either a custodial wallet, like an exchange, or a wallet for yourself like keys you generate and hold on your own.

The latter is fine

How could they possibly enforce that? Is there any government in the world that's currently able to enforce such laws?

> Is there any government in the world that's currently able to enforce such laws?

People talk about crypto like offshore bank accounts and cash never existed.

How does the revolutionary leader of a Sub-Saharan country who suspects the deposed leader has funds in an offshore bank account in a jurisdiction that doesn't even recognize the incoming regime get the money? Violence.

In hyper-legalistic societies like the U.S., yes, the police may sometimes have trouble finding proof that survives court scrutiny. (Though I'd guess most people aren't practicing good opsec around their crypto.) But that isn't most of the world. I don't see the Indian police having any trouble arresting and searching someone on reasonable suspicion of operating a hidden wallet.

What? Why have I never heard of it? Useless news outlets never talk about the important things :/ No one is opposing this? Why?!

> Useless news outlets never talk about the important things

It's a feature, not a bug.

Since Mullvad doesn't have any servers in India, they should be unaffected, right? I confirmed it with their support, they said it will not affect their users.

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