India, surge in crypto exchange users

Despite ambiguity about the legal status of cryptocurrencies in India, the latest survey on Crypto India Report conducted by Bit2Buzz has recorded 980% user growth and 500% volume growth in the crypto exchanges India following Bitcoin reached its all-time high.

The survey was conducted with the participation of major Indian crypto exchanges, including WazirX, Unocoin, CoinDCX, Cashaa, Bitbns, Oropocket, and ZebPay. 

The oldest crypto exchange in India, Unocoin, marked 100% user growth following post BTC price hitting an all-time high. 

While WazirX, the Binance-acquired crypto trading platform recognizes 180% growth in new signups with 523% volume growth in just 6 months. 

Besides the modest platform’s user growth ZebPay with 19.5%, CoinDCX with 25-30% per month, and Pocketbits recorded 25%; more notably, Cashaa claims their platform has seen 980% user growth and Bitbns noting 300%.

 As a country of nearly 1.4 billion people with more than 5 million people participating in the crypto market, India is also recorded as the second-largest cryptocurrency nation in Asia after China and the sixth biggest in the world. 

The reasons for the growth of crypto exchange users in India

After a lot of controversy by authorities with respect to money laundering and terror financing surrounding cryptocurrency transactions, in early March 2020, there is a milestone for the crypto industry in India. The Supreme Court of India passed a ruling invalidating the controversial ban imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on the country’s digital currency market.

Since neither the RBI nor the government has introduced new guidelines or restrictions on crypto investing, Indian banks have begun providing various services to domestic exchanges such as payment gateways, working capital loans, and other facilities.

This favorable condition coupled with the shifting expectations of investors after the wave of economic recession brought by the COVID-19 pandemic has strongly boosted the Indian crypto market. WazirX revealed that in addition to institutional investors, hedge funds in the US, and large companies such as Square participating in cryptocurrencies, there is also a significant rise in young people’s attention. In particular investor interest and retail demand for cryptocurrencies, which has grown steadily every month over the past 9 months has made a promising new trend this year.

With the speed and simplicity of paperless crypto-transactions, which are unregulated by any banking system, cryptocurrencies themselves carry the huge potential to make a financial revolution global. The spike in user percent recently is a positive signal for the Indian crypto market. Participants expect the government to clarify the legal transparency of the market to alleviate possible negative concerns, making it a more commonly accepted token in India.