- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Admin Super
2021 was off to a good start after some of the country’s biggest financial institutions started doing business with cryptocurrency again.
Leading banks such as Yes Bank, the State Bank of India, and ICICI Bank are once again allowing clients to use their accounts to make deposits and withdrawals with cryptocurrency sites. The news from https://coindesk.com/indias-banks has sparked a resurgence in interest in cryptocurrency in the country, leading to more trading account signups and more investors taking part in trading coins such as Bitcoin and Ether.
2020 marked a big turnaround in crypto’s Indian fortunes following the Supreme court ruling which lifted the ban on cryptocurrency transactions. This prohibition had been in place since 2018.
Since the ruling, signups to trading sites increased by around 10 times and trading volumes increased by as much as 500%. Industry insiders say this has been driven largely by male millennials. This is a trend that is prevalent outside of India as well as it’s believed less than 10% of investors are female.
The vast majority of those interested in cryptocurrency prefer to access crypto services via their mobile. In India, there were around 448 million mobile phone users with the number expected to rise over the next 12 months. Therefore, it’s reasonable to think that the increase in cryptocurrency investors and mobile users will go hand-in-hand.
In terms of what Indians are investing in, as expected the most well-known coins are performing well. Bitcoin and Ether are number one and two and others in the top ten vary depending on their performance at a particular time. But investors are also showing interest in other coins such as the token recently released by YuanPay Group, which has become popular in the last few years. According to https://learnbonds.com/crypto-robot/yuanpay-group, it is backed by the Chinese government and the Yen, it’s sparked considerable interest both in India and abroad in recent months.
Other good news includes the opening of the world’s first bricks-and-mortar cryptocurrency bank. Launched in collaboration between finance companies Cashaa and United Multistate Credit Cooperative Society, the first branch will be in the city of Jaipur. Called Unicas, users will be able to conduct regular bank transactions via the branch and using both cryptocurrencies and INR. Cashaa’s official medium page https://medium.com/cashaa/unicas-opens said they hope to open 13 other branches throughout the country by the end of Q1 2021, increasing to 100 branches by the end of 2022.
Furthermore, the use of blockchain- the technology that underpins cryptocurrency, is also gaining more traction. A wealth of startups, existing businesses, and even the government are looking at incorporating blockchain technology into their business operations. Others are looking at offering blockchain services to other companies and private individuals.
These are all indicators that the cryptocurrency sector in India could be on the cusp of mainstream adoption. The combination of increased regulatory acceptance with the presence of crypto banks, more mobile users, and better infrastructure for online crypto services could well lead to 2021 being the year of virtual currencies in India!
