Bitcoins may gain ground as govt goes after black money
who possess bitcoins in India feel the government’s drive against black money will help the paperless, bank-less, and state-less currency gain ground.
Queries for bitcoins have gone up by 20% to 30% in the past couple of days, according to ZepPay, the largest trader of the digital currency in the country, which is adding 25,000 new bitcoin customers every month.
ZepPay already has 200,000 of the 400,000 odd bitcoin owners in the country. “People who never talked about bitcoins called me. Financial companies also want to invest in bitcoins ... that’s a big change in a country where bitcoins have not taken off,” said Saurabh Agrawal, CEO of the company.
Bitcoins are a digital currency, made by computers, whose prices are validated through a public ledger. Many in the US, UK and China invest in bitcoins to hedge against the share market risk. This money can, like any digital money, be used to pay for goods and services, such as buying coffee, a meal at a restaurant or even clothes.
Though not many merchants are accepting bitcoins in India, wallet holders (like a ZepPay customer) can buy Amazon or MakeMyTrip vouchers, or pay bills with the money.
In Unocoin, 2,000 merchants and vendors are accepting bit- coins. Sapna Book House, India’s largest bookstore chain before Amazon set up shop here, also accepts bitcoins. “People are getting remittances in bitcoins, instead of Paypal. They are able to liquidate them by paying just 1% transaction fee,” said Sathvik Vishwanath, CEO and co-founder, Unocoin.
He is also coming out with point-of-sale app to accept bitcoins. However, few are making transactions with the new form of digital money.