Bitcoin is trending in India as the decentralized currency reached new price highs this week. According to multiple reports, the country’s top exchanges Zebpay, Coinsecure, Unocoin, and Bitxoxo are seeing unprecedented user sign-ups and massive trade volumes.
Also read: Bitcoin in India: ‘The Best Form of Money the Human Race Has Ever Experienced’
Cryptocurrency Exchanges Experience Massive Growth
Cryptocurrency fever is finding its way across every nation in the world, and India has been bitten by the ‘bitcoin bug’ for quite some time. This week the regional publication the Economic Times says Indian citizens and well-known investors from the region are “bullish” for bitcoin right now. India’s top exchanges are seeing a rush of people trying to obtain bitcoins with an exponential amount of registrations taking place this month. The Delhi-based Bitcoin exchange Coinsecure executive Vivek K explains;
We are flooded with requests — In the past week alone, we have seen double the number of registrations — Signups are happening at full capacity.
The co-founder of Zebpay expresses the same sentiment and says the firm’s INR/BTC trade volumes have been through the roof.
“Every three months our bitcoin trade volumes have been doubling, and that trend is continuing — The price movements have helped in the volume increase,” explains Saurabh Agrawal, of Zebpay.
High Net Worth Indian Investors Are Getting In On Bitcoin
Additionally, Unocoin is registering 5,000 users per day, and the trading platform’s user base has grown from 100,000 to 700,000 this year. Another bitcoin brokerage service Bitxoxo says they are registering 3,000 users a day, and the firm also notes that most of the new registrants have become active traders. Indian exchange executives are even claiming ‘high profile’ investors are stepping into the bitcoin economy as well. Coinsecure’s representative states;
There are high net worth individuals, trading companies, and corporate entities exploring this space. Experienced stock traders and analysts who study the charts are interested in investing because of the surge in price.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley: ‘We Don’t Recognise Bitcoin as Legal Currency as of Now’
However, government officials from India are still on the fence about their decisions to regulate bitcoin and other digital assets. On Friday December 1, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the press that India still has not validated bitcoin as a legal tender. Jaitley has stated earlier this year that exchanges have not been given the ‘green light’ yet by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). At the time Jaitley said bitcoin-based businesses were not licensed. The Finance Minister explains that even now bitcoin is still not recognized as tender.
“Recommendations are being worked at — The government’s position is clear, we don’t recognize this as legal currency as of now,” Jaitly details.
Bitcoiners from India don’t know yet what the government will decide in regard to bitcoin in the future. A while back an online petition that had captured over 15,000 signatures, including the exchange executives mentioned above, was submitted to the government asking them to legalize bitcoin. In addition to exchange registrations and bitcoin volume in India at record highs, the peer-to-peer platform Localbitcoins is also seeing massive bi-weekly trade volume.
What do you think about bitcoin’s popularity trending in India? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, bensonsamuel.com, and Livemint.
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