Crypto has neither been regulated nor been authorized by any authority in India but one cannot deny the fact that cryptocurrency in India has slowly started gaining new traction. In fact, as per the recent survey conducted by Bit2Buzz, it is revealed that the crypto exchanges in India saw more buyers coming in than holders following All-time-high.
Bit2Buzz, the crypto PR marketing firm in India reached out to all Indian-based crypto exchanges to understand the crypto awareness, user growth, and current regulatory scenario surrounding the crypto market in India.
We thank WazirX, Unocoin, CoinDCX, Cashaa, Bitbns, Oropocket, and ZebPay for participating in our latest survey on Crypto India Report - 2021.
Indian Exchanges Witness Massive User Signups Following Post BTC ATH
Regardless of the Centralized or Decentralized crypto trading platform, Bitcoin’s All-Time-High (ATH) pushed for massive user growth among these exchanges. When asked about the percentage of user growth following post BTC price hitting ATH, Unocoin which is the oldest crypto exchange in India marked 100% growth whereas WazirX, the Binance-acquired crypto trading platform states 523% volume growth in 6 months with 180% growth in new signups.
However, Cashaa notes that their platform witnessed 980% user growth, Bitbns reaching 300%, Pocketbits noting 25% user growth. Also, ZebPay accounts for about 19.5 % of new user signups following post-BTC ATH whereas CoinDCX states that they have seen 25-30% Month Month growth conservatively.
Since the crypto market has taken the world by a storm with its trillion dollar market capitalization, we emphasized understanding the exchange perspective on rising Bitcoin’s price.
While most of the exchanges strongly asserted ‘rise in institutional interest led to rising in Bitcoin price’, WazirX adds that the pandemic has led to retail participation alongside institutional participation.
Youth favors BTC over traditional investment and WazirX has a huge young user base. We’re also seeing a lot of institutional investors, and hedge funds in the US, and large companies like Square entering in crypto, said Nischal Shetty, Founder at WazirX. So the pandemic which led to retail participation, and the institutional participation converging together, and the fact that crypto has been growing consistently month on month in the past 8-9 months have culminated into what we’re seeing now. There’s a large demand and less supply because a large number of people are holding large amounts of Bitcoin and not selling it, he further added.
Get to know who are the Top Institutional Investors Invested in Bitcoin in 2020
Number of Buyers Climbed on Crypto Trading Platforms in India
Moreover, it is discovered that the exchanges have seen more buyers coming in than traders and holders. While WazirX, Unocoin, and Bitbns experienced large numbers of buyers post BTC hitting ATH, Cashaa, and Oropocket witnessed huge interest from holders. Noticeably, both serve as the crypto banking platform in India. On the other hand, ZebPay and CoinDCX have seen massive traders coming in on the platform.
When it comes to crypto, India’s name comes with the headlines of several hearings surrounding regulatory moves and bashing cryptocurrencies from the very beginning. In fact, while questioned, whether exchanges would believe that people can conduct transactions through their regular bank accounts easily once India legally defining Crypto ecosystem, the exchanges in India strongly believe so. Interestingly, COO and Co-founder of Oropocket, Tarusha Mittal marked says 'It's India. You never know'.
Additionally, they also believe that once rules are defined in this space, cryptocurrency could be taxable in India. Surprisingly, in this country alone, it is estimated that there are 5 million people involved in the crypto market out of 1.38 billion population.
However, the major concern over legalizing or regulating crypto transactions in India or in any country are significantly connected to money laundering and terror financing. While in some countries, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are termed as property, other countries are only eyeing the development of blockchain solutions. For instance, Japan has been actively working on crypto regulatory activities and one of the recent developments is that the country's top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA ) will be regulating cryptocurrency-related business activities of operators.
That said, it is exciting to see how and when regulatory authorities of other countries and especially the Indian Govt. would move towards legalizing, regulating, and taxing the crypto and crypto transactions.
You may also read our 2020’s report on the Demographics and Behaviour of Traders on Indian Exchanges and NEO Banks