Governments can't kill Bitcoin.

But they can definitely prevent an industry or an ecosystem from emerging around it.

They have successfully done that in India.

Here's how:

•Banks were pressured not to work with emerging Bitcoin companies, even after the supreme court in 2020 overturned a half-a-decade (unconstitutional I must add) ban.

•It is almost impossible to procure ASICs in India because of import duties, which means hash rate from the China ban either stayed in China or moved to Kazakhstan or the west. An opportunity to be a leading participant in the coming energy revolution, squandered.

•Liquidity on exchanges dried up as buyers, sellers, market makers and liquidity providers refused to touch orderbooks because of two things:

1% TDS which is a tax levied on every trade and 30% Income tax levied on profits.

•Now, they've blocked off access to international exchanges that had a thriving P2P market because Indian exchanges ratted them out to the Indian Government for being 'non-compliant'. The license raj days of protectionism are back.

•The media piled on, almost like they were the government's mouthpiece, reporting nothing about Bitcoin except petty scams and crimes, which piled on to the social disrepute and legal uncertainty industry participants were already facing.

As a result of all this, an emerging sector in tech has been amputated without being given a chance.

Employment opportunities are next to non-existent for those who want to work in the industry. Those who want to start ventures of their own find it difficult to raise serious capital to operate at a competitive scale. It is not feasible to be in India and work in or start a venture in Bitcoin.