Coinbase just announced that it will now be available to Indian users.
Coinbase’s CEO stayed in India for a week to discuss the possibility of opening its crypto exchange app to Indian users. The firm is persistent in expanding its crypto exchange app to other countries including India. Coinbase even hired former Google Pay executive Pankaj Gupta to play a key role.
Coinbase Is available in 100 markets. The firm already offered its crypto exchange app to India several years ago. But it was not yet viable then as India lacked support for any payment method.
Coinbase is also expected to set up a tech cluster in India. It is eyeing to hire about 1000 workers.
The announcement came just as India is set to lay out stricter new cryptocurrency taxes through a bill. This new crypto trading law can be a hurdle and can cause the enthusiasm of Indian users to wane. The Indian government plans to set the crypto tax at 30 percent. And this caused less interest with Indians halting their crypto trading.
Thus, bringing the Coinbase technology to the market will be no easy feat. The firm also added that they have no idea how the new crypto technology will evolve amid the new regulations.
But the firm also stressed that what is important is that India has shown genuine interest in crypto. India also expressed a great desire to have access to these goods and services.
And the sailing of the maiden ship in India came at a very interesting time. Coinbase already has over $150 million worth of investment in 10 firms in India. Some of which include Polygon, CoinSwitch, and CoinDCX. So access to Coinbase is just a matter of time.
And this will prove to be A very interesting turn of events. With the new sticker laws on crypto, no one has any idea how the event will unfold in the future.
And though Coinbase doesn’t have a clear idea on which direction everything will veer towards, they are genuinely dedicated to collaborating with bank partners, authorities, and Indian users.
India has displayed readiness with UPI. The initial stage in buying cryptocurrency involves setting up a UPI or a unified payments interface. The firm mentioned that India showed readiness. UPI is the most popular method by which Indians transact online. The Indian Central Bank already regulates a peer-to-peer and person-to-merchant payment system such as UPI.