Quote from: thoughtfan on December 06, 2013, 07:49:40 AM

Quote from: Vycid on December 06, 2013, 06:43:41 AM

Quote from: traderCJ on December 06, 2013, 06:13:59 AM

Quote from: bitboyben on December 06, 2013, 06:08:58 AM

Word on the street: India.
And they hate being out done by China.
$1300 next week

Source please. Hell, you can't even legally import gold into India. I don't think Indian regulators will take too kindly to Bitcoin, but I could be wrong. I don't know why India didn't jump in earlier .. compared to China, they have a much higher English literacy rate so you'd think they'd already be all over the existing exchanges.

They will not take kindly to Bitcoin at all. India's balance of trade has been suffering due to their gold imports, and since I'm guessing most Bitcoins are outside Indian borders, a Bitcoin craze will just worsen that problem.

However, Indian regulators are breathtakingly slow to act, and often ineffectual when they do. It is conceivable that India will "come online" before their government even grasps the concept.

The important difference between India and China is that China has experienced much, much greater recent growth in its middle class. It's only rich and middle class folks who have the disposable income to buy bitcoins with, and so there are many more potential buyers in China than India.

It's not reasonable to expect a second "China effect" out of India. Our attention now should be focused on Wall Street.

Seems like a reasonable assessment (I am no expert on India so I'm not really qualified to endorse or counter it) and I agree there is unlikely to be the same kind of proportion of middle class Indians as have been Chinese buying in as a speculative investment. Where India does I think have greater shorter term promise is in remittances and as the cellphone revolution continues, as mobile money such as M-Pesa is doing in Kenya.

Just like I anticipate the David Woo comments yesterday are more likely to have a bigger impact on businesses considering adaption than on price I anticipate India in the shorter term to have a bigger impact on adoption than price - though there is a limit, especially with the latter, as to how much adaption can go on without impacting price.

I will repeat, as much as it may sound like I know what I'm talking about remember this is a speculation forum...

That's a good point. Remittances are a big immediate application for Bitcoin.

It's important to remember, though, that the asymmetry of international Bitcoin-to-cash transactions is the reason they're valuable in the first place. Once those Bitcoins leave the US (for example) and are sent to India, you can't really get them back out of India without wiring money to an Indian exchange. So it's not a closed loop and therefore you expect bitcoins to be cheaper in India if they're being used for remittance - unless there's more organic Indian demand for bitcoins than there is in the US or wherever.

To illustrate - imagine lots of expatriated Indians are sending bitcoins home. Lots of family members are cashing these out for their local currency (Rupees). The market in India is experiencing a glut in the supply of bitcoins, and the price drops.

Arbitrageurs will spring into action, buying up bitcoins for Rupees, selling them for dollars on Western exchanges, exchanging the dollars back into Rupees, and wiring them to India.

However, the price differential will never shrink (at equilibrium) below the costs of arbitrage. Unless it is somehow cheaper for the arbitrageurs to wire that money to India than it is for the expatriates, Bitcoin will not offer advantages except perhaps speed.