India Sees Massive Bitcoin Transaction Increase Fueled By New Generation

Indian business owners Swati Daga and Sumit Gupta speak on new generations buying into bitcoin because stocks and other assets are “boring.”

• India business woman Swati Daga speaks to younger generations investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
• Sumit Gupta, CEO of CoinDCX discusses millennials beginning their investment journey with cryptocurrency.
• India saw 706% cryptocurrency transaction increase totalling 14% of global transactions.

Swati Daga, founder of food company The Good Phat, which emphasizes the use of avocados in unique styles, recently appeared in an interview with CNN Business discussing the changing investment landscape of India as younger generations turn to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“The elders in my family told me not to throw my money away,” Daga told Diksha Madhok. This was in reference to Daga’s initial investment in bitcoin during 2017, when it was trading under $3,000. With Daga bringing in around fifteen times her initial investment, she told CNN Business that she currently holds 10% of her savings in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“I find stock markets boring,” Daga continued. This sentiment continues to rise as younger generations find these new investment strategies to be far more compelling. With estimates suggesting that 20 million of the 750 million internet users currently hold some form of cryptocurrency in India.

Sumit Gupta, CEO and co-founder of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX, suggested that millennials of India are turning to cryptocurrency as a way to start “their investing journey with crypto.”

In a Chainalysis report from October 2021, India was ranked 2nd globally in terms of the Global Crypto Adoption Index, fueled by the increase of Central & Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO) markets having a 706% transaction increase, which represented 14% of global transactions.

This immense growth becomes even more staggering when one considers how close India came to banning Bitcoin.

In June of 2020, Gupta responded to numbers sourced from Chainalysis – a blockchain analytics company – saying, "Bitcoin has stood the test of the time and it has achieved the status of the store of value.” Gupta continued, “If technologies like Bitcoin's lightning network and others are successful and implemented at scale then we will use bitcoin as a medium of exchange."