In India, the crypto situation has continued to shift in various directions. India’s largest lender recently disabled UPI payment services for cryptocurrency merchants. It was a major setback for crypto enthusiasts in India. It didn’t stop them from trading/investing in digital assets, though. This is why.
To speed up crypto trades, Indians are now using P2P platforms and messaging platforms.
“Due to the unpredictability of banking services offered to exchanges by banks, Indian crypto investors are now opting for P2P transfers, spot trading, and WhatsApp or Telegram groups to trade currencies.”
According to the report, these platforms accounted for 60–80 percent of all transactions. Other methods, such as spot trading, direct buy-and-sell, and buying directly from mutual friends, also saw an increase. An increase of nearly 80% of all transactions on exchanges, compared to about 10-15% last year. According to Jay Hao, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange OKEx.com,
“In India, P2P marketplaces are used by more than 90% of users who switch from fiat currency. A large number of users prefer to deposit their cryptocurrency directly on the OKEx platform in order to take advantage of the advanced trading features.”
Furthermore, Nischal Shetty, CEO of WazirX, stated,
“P2P is a fiat to crypto on-ramp solution, not a way to trade cryptocurrency. People would use P2P to convert their fiat to crypto (USDT) and vice versa in the absence of banking options during the banking ban.”
In India, there has been a shift in interest in cryptocurrencies. India ranked second on the Global Crypto Adoption Index, according to a Chainalysis survey. “Tier-2 and tier-3 cities have driven nearly 55 percent of total user sign-ups on WazirX in 2021, thereby overtaking tier-1 cities, which demonstrated a sign-up growth of 2,375 percent,” WazirX’s CEO previously told The Economic Times.
However, the Indian government’s position on crypto regulations is still unclear, and no significant steps have been taken to bring clarity. Despite this, the outlook for Indian investors appears to be somewhat optimistic at this time.