India is on the brink of a crypto revolution, which is expected to boom in full capacity once the country finalises laws to safeguard the industry against financial risks in the coming times. In its year-ender report for 2022, Indian crypto exchange WazirX has highlighted that over two million new users signed up on its platform this year. Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, the two rival meme coins, have emerged among popular crypto choices in India despite their quite lacklustre performance for most part of this year.
Over 27 percent of first-time crypto buyers on WazirX, purchased Shiba Inu tokens. At the time of writing, each SHIB token is trading at $0.0000086 (roughly Rs. 0.000708) after incurring a loss of over two percent on Monday, December 19, showed the crypto price tracker by Gadgets 360.
The trading for Dogecoin on WazirX swelled by 3000 percent, as soon as Tesla chief Elon Musk finalised the takeover of Twitter on October 27, the exchange noted. DOGE is presently priced $0.078 (roughly Rs. 6.42) after recording a drop of 2.43 percent today.
It is noteworthy that most of the investors in meme coins were Indian men.
Indian women, on the other hand, have also deepened their presence into the crypto sector by choosing ‘blue chip tokens’ that are perceived to reach higher values in the long run with better liquidity values.
“Women in the age group of 26-40 years contributed to 46 percent of the total trading volume by all women users on the platform. Women traded 20 percent of the top tokens traded on the platform, on an average. Women from the states of West Bengal (42 percent), Haryana (35 percent), Uttar Pradesh (25 percent), and Karnataka (21 percent) were involved the most in crypto trades,” WaizirX’s findings highlighted.
Bitcoin, Tether, Ether, Polygon, Tron, and WazirX’s native WRX token were named as other cryptocurrencies that ruled trading charts on the exchange.
Ahead of the now-concluded FIFA World Cup, ChiliZ token (CHZ), the official token of fan voting portal Socios.com, also managed to garner a rousing interest from Indian soccer enthusiasts.
India secured the fourth rank surpassing Russia and the US on the 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index compiled by blockchain research firm Chainalysis, published in September.
As per WazirX, Indians chose crypto gifts to present to their loved ones around the festivals of Rakshabandhan and Diwali — that were respectively marked in the months of August and October.
“We saw gift cards worth a total of Rs. 11 lakhs purchased on our platform for the festivals, with 50 percent of the gift cards bought during Diwali,” the exchange noted.
Amid the ongoing downtime for the crypto sector, WazirX has called out to the crypto community members to keep spreading awareness on safe investment practices.
The exchange has predicted that the acceptance of retail crypto payments in the Indian business circle will evolve as the government formulates regulations around the sector that focus on security of invested funds.
“In the coming years, with better regulatory clarity, secure infrastructure for transferring assets, introduction of CBDCs, institutional adoption of crypto, and more brands introducing services pertaining to virtual digital assets, it’s only a matter of time before crypto becomes an integral part of our daily lives,” the report noted.
WazirX received 828 complaint requests from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Interpol, and Indian law enforcement agencies such as the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Enforcement Directorate (ED), and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against a total of 10 million transactions during April-September 2022.
The exchange has vouched to help all the law enforcement agencies tracking suspicious transactions and keeping the sector secure.
Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.