After India's Supreme Court reached a landmark decision in early March that essentially lifted a two-year-old ban on cryptocurrency transactions, the country has seen numerous homegrown and foreign cryptocurrency businesses revive or start up from scratch, like a spring awakening after a long period of hibernation.
But many of the entrepreneurs and investors are pushing ahead with their bets despite fears of another complete ban or severe restrictions on cryptocurrency trading, which bureaucrats and cabinet members are said to be discussing. Local media reports say the government aims to submit a bill to parliament before the November holiday season, which, when enacted, will regulate or possibly ban cryptocurrencies.
Undeterred, Indian investors are rushing back into the cryptocurrency trading scene.
cryptocurrency information website, combined monthly trading volume between the Indian rupee and Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has nearly doubled between March and July at two major peer-to-peer crypto asset trading platforms --- LocalBitcoins of Finland and Paxful of the U.S. Their total volume in March was equivalent to $8.14 million. By July the figure had reached $16.26 million.
Those platforms were used only by those living outside India before the Supreme Court ruling. Afterward, residents of India were allowed to trade.
Homegrown trading platforms also reopened to local clients soon after the court decision, which stated that the regulation put in place by the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, in April 2018 prohibiting financial institutions from dealing with entities and individuals involved in cryptocurrency transactions was unconstitutional.
CoinDCX has quickly attracted fresh investments from a number of global investors, including Bain Capital of the U.S. It raised a total $5.5 million in two rounds in March and May, following the court ruling.
"The cryptocurrency industry in India is finally getting the recognition it deserves from global corporations and investors," said Sumit Gupta, CoinDCX's co-founder and chief executive, in a blog post announcing the May fundraising deal. Gupta described the investments as "a shot of confidence" in the startup's vision of "bringing the crypto asset class to a largely untapped Indian market."
The world's largest crypto exchange network, Binance of Malta, acquired WazirX last November, perhaps anticipating India's ban on cryptocurrency trading would be lifted soon. The two exchanges have interconnected their systems so that each exchange's account holders can log on to the other's platform and trade.
There are also newly emerging crypto startups in the country. TradeHorn Exchange and BitPolo Technologies, both based in Bangalore, launched exchanges in June. They both target newcomers to the crypto asset market.
