Coinbase has announced that its exchange app would be accessible to traders in India.
Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN), the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, has announced that its exchange app would be accessible to traders in India. This was announced after Indian users noticed the integration of two payment systems (UPI & IMPS) on the app about two weeks ago. Also, Brian Armstrong, co-founder, and CEO of Coinbase has been in India for the past couple of weeks, and his presence signified that something was in the pipeline.
In one of his announcements, Armstrong disclosed that they are making a long-term investment in India. In addition, the Chief Product Officer of the firm Surojit Chatterjee gave a demonstration of user onboarding on the exchange. According to Chatterjee, setting up a UPI would be the first step to buying crypto. Armstrong also confirmed the support from Indians for this payment system.
At this time, India has imposed stringent taxation law on cryptos with a 30 percent tax expected from every profit from its transactions. This law was effective starting from April 1. In addition, 1 percent of tax has been imposed at source (TDS) starting from July 1. The taxation law has affected crypto interests in the country, making it a huge challenge to promote it for mass acceptance, especially with this groundbreaking announcement by Coinbase.
“We know it’s not going to be a straight shot to bring this technology. We don’t know exactly how it’s going to evolve. But we’re committed to working with bank partners, regulators, most importantly, the Indian people because they’ve shown a real spark of interest in cryptocurrency, and there’s a real desire to get access to some of these services and products,” said Armstrong.
However, Coinbase is not slowing down as it has made about $150 million in investments in 10 companies in India according to Chatterjee. The likes of Polygon, CoinDCX, and CoinSwitch were all beneficiaries of this investment.
Armstrong earlier disclosed that the company was planning to add 1000 more employees to its existing 300 staff in India.
“We have ambitious plans for India and seek to hire over 1,000 people in our India hub this year alone,” he said in a blog post.
As part of its global plans, it also expects to add 2,000 more employees in the area of Product, Engineering, and Design. In the post, he mentioned that the efforts to fulfill their mission of advancing economic freedom are in full force with crypto as the perfect tool. For this reason, it is important to make it easily accessible for everyone and anywhere in the world.
“India is a magical place, and I believe crypto has a big future here. We’re excited to help build that future, and this event is an important step,” he added.
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