An interview with CEO and co-founder Sumit Gupta revealed the latest funding round valued the company at $1.1 billion. Existing investors include Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Block.one, and Jump Capital.
The funds will be used by Gupta to double his team number in India, where crypto investments hit nearly $6.6 billion in May from about $923 million in April 2020, according to Chainalysis. The announcement of this investment comes as policymakers debate the status of digital currencies in India – the central bank recently expressed its “significant concerns” over private virtual currencies and the government will have a final say on the matter.
“I am pretty sure the industry will be regulated at the right time,” Gupta said. “We have chosen to put at stake our money and career as we feel this is going to be a very good wealth generation opportunity for people.”
Before setting up CoinDCX in 2018, the 30-year-old engineer spent several hours a day reading about blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Registered in Singapore as Primestack Pte., it aims to expand its user base to 50 million from 3.5 million over the next few years and focus on educating users on crypto and blockchain.
Last year, the Supreme Court quashed a ban prohibiting banks from facilitating crypto trades, resulting in an unprecedented upswing in investment. The daily trading volume of the four biggest crypto exchanges in India increased to $159 million from $28.6 million one year ago, according to CoinGecko.
There has been concern among regulators about the volatile nature of the asset. After reaching a high of $64,870 in April, Bitcoin lost half of its value to $28,824 by June. India’s Reserve Bank is considering creating its own digital currency. According to Gupta, India holds the capability to dominate this space.
In the coming months, the company plans to offer new products for wealthy individuals.
“We have a very tech savvy population, good mobile penetration, big base of engineers and developers who can leverage blockchain technology,” Gupta said. Once regulation is firmed up, he believes India will produce more than 100 crypto unicorns in the next few years.
