WazirX CEO: India’s crypto industry keeps “clean” for regulators

In India, the legal status of crypto and cryptocurrency trading remains a hot and murky topic. India’s divisions, differences in opinion and all-out tug-of-war over the legality of crypto have been on full display in recent years. First there was a central bank ban on banks doing business with crypto firms. Then the Indian Supreme Court overturned that banking ban. Earlier this year, India’s Parliament upped the ante by drafting a bill that would ban crypto outright. That crypto ban bill hasn’t gone anywhere — yet. But with that threat in the shadows, what are India’s crypto holders and companies to do? As India’s crypto community awaits official clarification, many companies are now taking matters into their own hands through a voluntary and self-imposed code of conduct that would make them compliant with reasonable regulations, said Nishcal Shetty, founder of WazirX, in an interview with Forkast.News. WazirX, which launched just three weeks before the Reserve Bank of India’s issued its ban on crypto banking in 2018 and has since grown into one of the nation's biggest crypto exchanges, recently joined a new collaboration between India's Blockchain and Crypto Assets Council and India's Internet and Mobile Association to develop guidelines for self-regulation among India’s crypto exchanges. “The idea as an industry was, should we really just wait till the law comes in and just have anyone operate according to their own wishes? Or can we sort of try to build a template and sort of show the government that even on our own, we're still responsible and it's not the Wild West out here,” Shetty said. “I think with that objective, we decided we should all come together, exchanges in the country and adhere to some set of guidelines which we will all follow.” An entrepreneur at heart, Shetty took a hard look at India’s lagging position in the blockchain and cryptocurrency global ecosystem and realized that creating access was the first step to foster technological innovation and growth in the nation of 1.4 billion. Throughout his journey in the space, Shetty has discovered that among the oscillating government positions, that there are nuances in even hardline stances and a willingness by government officials to learn and understand the disruptive new technology. Shetty also believes the crypto industry can help the hundreds of millions of citizens who do not have access to mainstream financial services, such as having a bank savings account. “If you look at the whole equity space in India, we have probably 70 million people into it, that's about 4% and that's an industry that has existed for many, many years,” Shetty said. “Now, here you have an industry which sort of in India — I think it's been only four or five years since crypto really became a popular term — if you look at it in isolation, yes, it seems like just 1%. But if you think about it, it's already 25% of the whole equity space in a very short period of time. So that growth trajectory is something which is very, very visible.” Watch Nishcal Shetty’s full interview with Forkast.News Editor-in-Chief Angie Lau to learn more about his thoughts on India’s future with crypto, what regulators are doing to facilitate the industry’s growth, how crypto can help the impoverished, and more.