Millennials Pull Crypto Out of the Shadows in India
Not long ago there was a ban on banks dealing with virtual currencies. Now the industry itself wants to be regulated and is harnessing the power of Bollywood superstars to lift its profile.
Into the light.
Photographer: Janos Kummer/Getty Images
In hundreds of India’s small cities and towns, a generation that has hardly had any experience with stocks and bonds is heading straight for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano and Solana. The average age of the 11 million users of CoinSwitch Kuber, a cryptocurrency trading app that didn’t exist 18 months ago, is 25, and 55% of them are from outside large metropolises like New Delhi or Mumbai.
Widespread acceptance of digital tokens by millennials and Generation Z is helping the industry step out of the shadows, a far cry from 2018 when the cofounders of a crypto exchange were briefly in police custody for daring to put up a kiosk in a Bangalore shopping mall where people could swap their Bitcoin for money. Now trading is all very public, and highly visible. CoinSwitch Kuber has signed up a popular Bollywood youth icon for an ad campaign with the tagline, “Kucch toh badlega” — something will change.