achieved unicorn status A funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures, underscores investor interest in a market that is facing regulatory uncertainty.
In fact, this is a16z’s first investment in India, and Coinbase Ventures’ second investment in the Indian crypto platform. In August, the corporate venture arm of Nasdaq-listed Coinbase
supported CoinDCX In a $90 million funding round, making the company India’s first crypto unicorn.
developments are important, especially since India is
lead the charge One of the fastest growing cryptocurrency markets globally is South Asia and Oceania, according to a report by Chainalysis, a New York-based blockchain data platform.
“Transfers of large institutional size, valued at more than $10 million, represent 42% of transactions sent from India-based addresses, 28% to Pakistan and 29% to Vietnam,” the report said. “These figures suggest that cryptocurrency investors in India are part of larger, more sophisticated organizations.”
Against that backdrop, take a look at the top 5 cryptocurrency platforms in India and their unique selling propositions:
CoinDCX
Also read tech news of the day
ETtechCoinDCX co-founders Sumit Gupta (right) and Neeraj Khandelwal
founded by: Neeraj Khandelwal and Sumit Gupta
founded in: April 2018
the headquarters: Mumbai
Business Model: CoinDCX helps people buy and sell crypto tokens. It also offers other crypto-based financial products such as lending. The CoinDCX Prime initiative, its latest offering, targets high-networth individuals and enterprises, providing them with legally verified and secure investments. The crypto exchange also has a global trading product called Cosmex. As of August 10, CoinDCX had 3.5 million users.
coinswitch kuber
ETtechCoinSwitch Kuber founders (from left) Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Govind Soni and Ashish Singhal.
founded by: Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Govind Soni and Ashish Singhal
founded in: 2017
the headquarters: Bangalore
Business Model: What started as a global aggregator of cryptocurrency exchanges turned into an India-exclusive crypto platform in June 2020 – investors can invest up to Rs 100 in over 100 digital tokens on the platform. The settlement is done in Rs. Its users can access the deposit liquidity of major cryptocurrency exchanges in India to get the best rates and trade instantly after completing Know Your Customer procedures.
ETtechNischal Shetty, cofounder of WazirX.
founded by: Nischal Shetty, Siddharth Menon and Sameer Mhatre
founded in: 2017
the headquarters: Mumbai
Business Model: The local unit of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, WazirX has a crypto-trading platform focused on bitcoin but offers its own token as well as WRX. startup, which
recently faced scrutiny From ED, non-fungible token (NFT) offerings have diversified and
Establish a decentralized finance platform. platform, which
hit the headlines During May’s crypto bull run, there is
Partnered with TRM Labs For crypto fraud detection.
and primeZebPay CEO Rahul Pagidipati.
founded by: Mahin Gupta, Saurabh Gupta and Sandeep Gupta
founded in: 2012
the headquarters: Singapore/Ahmedabad
Business Model: India’s first crypto exchange had a renaissance of sorts in January 2020, when Rahul Pagidipati, a minority investor,
took over the startup from its founders with majority shareholding. Since then, ZebPay has reinvented itself to offer not only trading but allied services such as:
“India accounts for less than 1% of the world’s crypto currencies and has a potential investor base of 100 million,” Pagdipati
Was told Bloomberg in May said there is “a huge demand for cryptocurrency … it’s like Apple stock, expensive but valuable.”
ETMarkets.comUnocoin co-founder Satwik Vishwanath.
founded by: Abhinand Kasati, Harish BV, Satwik Vishwanath, Sunny Rai
founded in: July 2013
the headquarters: Tumkur/Bengaluru
Business Model: Unocoin provides a platform for users to buy or sell bitcoins using Indian Rupees by matching their orders with other users. It also enables over-the-counter trading for wholesale transactions. The company recently advertised bitcoin as an alternative to gold for festive season gifts. It has tied up with e-commerce companies and brands to allow users to redeem gift vouchers purchased using bitcoin.
Read also:
India is fueling the world’s fastest growing crypto sectors