In 2011, Vishal Gupta bought his first batch of bitcoins at Rs 2,000 each. Today, that investment is worth Rs 2 crore. And he’s not the only Indian to have benefited from the bitcoin rally over the last few years.
According to Bloomberg, the eight-year-old cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym used by the creator of bitcoin, has surged more than 600 percent in 2016. And it turns out, India hasn’t been left out of the party.
As of June, India accounted for nearly 11 percent of international trade, according to bitcoin trade analyst Chris Burniske.
There are many digital currencies in the market such as Litecoin, Peercoin and Ether. But Bitcoin is the most popular one.
Also Read: Emergence of Cryptocurrency: What Is It and What Does Future Hold?
Regulators in India and around the world are wary of the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies. The Reserve Bank of India maintains that there are potential financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related risks that users, traders, and holders of virtual currencies are exposing themselves to.
In a February notification on its website, the RBI said that it had not authorised or licensed any company to operate in any cryptocurrency.
As such, any user, holder, investor, trader, etc, dealing with virtual currencies will be doing so at their own risk.RBI Statement (1 February)
These caveats and potential risks are not denting the enthusiasm for Bitcoin in India. “The regulator just warns users that cryptocurrencies are volatile, and you could lose your funds, but they have never said it is illegal and you will be put behind bars,” Saurabh Agrawal, co-founder of bitcoin wallet Zebpay told BloombergQuint.
According to Zebpay’s Twitter account, the wallet crossed one million downloads on India’s Google Play Store last month.
Gupta says that he was wary of bitcoin when he first learned about them from a friend’s Facebook post in 2011.
For two weeks, he argued with his friend about the shortcomings of the cryptocurrency. “For the longest time, I thought it was some sort of a ponzi scheme,” he says. In hindsight, the bitcoin crorepati is glad he eventually had a change of heart.
(The story was first published on BloombergQuint)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)