Following a December raid in Ahmedabad, India on Mahim Gupta’s property due to his project Buysellbitco.in, along with a firm warning from the Reserve Bank of India, exchanges and other bitcoin services in the country have been on-edge about associating themselves with the digital currency.
But it seems like things may be changing. Bitcoin buy-and-sell house Unocoin will be resuming the business on the 8th of January (Wednesday). As of today, users will be able to log in and view their wallets.
It’s all thanks to the Bitcoin Alliance of India, and specifically lawyer Nishith Desai — who heads the group.
“Our Bitcoins Practice Group examined the issue from techno-legal perspective and have found that Bitcoins per se are not illegal in India,” said Desai in a statement. “This is in consonance with international approach. US considers Bitcoins as a legitimate payment alternative. US Senate Home Land Security and Government Affairs Committee and the Senate Banking Committee consider that virtual currency has legitimate uses.”
On Unocoin’s website (which we will note is currently down), the following news update appears:
After press conference organized by BAI headed by Mr. Nishith Desai, and after the take-aways of the conference are out to public through media, Mr. Nishith Desai has given us a green signal to start Unocoin operations which will be starting on 6th Jan 2014 when the logins will be enabled and Unocoin wallets will be accessible. Buying and selling of bitcoins will go live from 8th of Jan 2014. CoinMonk Ventures and Unocoin is very thankful to Nishith Desai and their team for being a part of press conference and guiding us through till here. – Unocoin Team
Could this be the beginning of a large-scale bitcoin movement in India? It’s possible, but only time will tell.