Crypto players innovate to ease adoption in India

2022 has seen a buzz of crypto activity so far. With bitcoin close to US$45,000, the total market cap for crypto has reached past US$2 trillion, according to CoinGecko data. In the last week, bitcoin has increased by almost 14%, and ether has soared by 12%.

As the Russian and Ukraine war rages on, crypto has been helping both sides, says Vox.

January saw several launches. The crypto community has welcomed the legal status of digital assets after the Union Budget 2022 announcement. February too has seen many ways in which crypto players are trying to ease the adoption of virtual currencies.

Catalysing mass adoption of crypto transactions

After successfully running operations in over 60+ countries, the UK-based fiat-to-crypto payment gateway, Transak, is now in India. Transak’s launch in India marks the entry of the nation’s first and only fiat on-ramp provider.

In addition to building a team of 50+ local talents, Transak has partnered with marquee web3 players like Polygon, WazirXNFT, and Zilliqa and are under process to further integrate with Mudrex, edge wallet, and others.

Read more: An affair to remember: Bollywood continues to go gaga on NFTs

With an objective to catalyse mass adoption of crypto transactions, Transak would enable users to buy crypto using bank transfers, debit/credit cards, wallets, UPI, and various payment applications worldwide. Transak’s gateway is integrated with fiat payment methods around the globe which could further be used to make the purchase.

Sami Start, Co-founder, Transak, said, “We are thrilled to extend our shared passion of simplifying crypto transactions to the Indian market. With the world’s second-largest population, the Indian market has both the opportunity and will to fast-track future with web3 developments by the way of mass adoption. We believe Transak would bridge that gap in the Indian market and would tap into the true potential of its one 1.4 billion nationals.”

With the world’s second-largest population, the Indian market has both the opportunity and will to fast-track future with web3 developments by the way of mass adoption

Yeshu Agarwal, Co-founder, Transak, added, “Transak uniquely provides fiat on-ramp in India and our extended vision is to empower and enable the Dapps built in India to have secure yet seamless onboarding onto crypto economy. With Transak, users will now be able to directly buy crypto using INR via bank transfers, debit/credit cards, wallets, UPI, and various payment applications worldwide. To execute this vision, we are also looking at utilising the local talent pool as we plan to grow our team to 200+ by hiring across functions.”   

By offering an easy route to add the gateway to an app or website with just a few lines of code, Transak’s fiat-to-crypto payment gateway empowers both novices and enthusiasts and enables easy purchase, sale, and trade-in of cryptocurrencies. With its wide crypto coverage, the gateway offers support for all major blockchains, tokens, and stable coins, marking a tally of 80+ cryptocurrencies.

Physical branches of crypto in hamari Dilli

Unicas, the first crypto financial institution with physical branches opened another physical branch in India’s capital, New Delhi. The new branch based out of Connaught Place, New Delhi will allow users to access banking services in both fiat and cryptocurrency.

Unicas accepts the CAS token as its native crypto. Users with higher portfolio balance in CAS get advanced banking services along with lower rate of interest for loans and much higher interest on savings balance.

Being physical does not mean we are not online, our major customer acquisition is online, while our branches are creating trust in the masses and allowing less tech savvy people to become the part of the crypto revolution

Dinesh Kukreja, CEO of Unicas, said, “Since Unicas launch in India, we have received an overwhelming response from users. Our primary agenda was to also spread awareness about crypto, and share more knowledge, additionally making people familiar with the technology. We have attained the objective to a certain extent, however, to further proceed in this direction we are expanding our footprint through physical branches.

“Being physical does not mean we are not online, our major customer acquisition is online, while our branches are creating trust in the masses and allowing less tech savvy people to become the part of the crypto revolution.”

Unicas has already created presence in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi, and this year it plans to foray in UP, Telangana, markets too. With the currently operational physical branches the brand has already witnessed a transactional volume worth INR 150 crore.

Facilitating the growth of derivatives trading in the crypto space

A study by Carnegie Mellon University researchers estimates the traded volume in cryptocurrency derivatives to surpass US$100 billion. With over 105 million Indians invested in the digital token space, providing seamless solutions that provide various traditional financial services are necessary to ensure the continued growth of the Indian crypto sector.

Oddz Finance, a crypto derivatives trading platform, has been at the forefront of innovation in the derivatives space since its inception. With significant success on the BSC chain, Oddz now plans to integrate with the Avalanche network.

Oddz launched its mainnet on Avalanche, an open, programmable smart contracts platform for decentralized applications. This collaboration will aim to increase the adoption of derivatives trading on the network, massively aiding users of the Avalanche network.

Derivatives in India have been an active market with National Stock Exchange being the largest derivatives exchange for the third consecutive year in 2021 by the number of contracts traded

The launch will see the release of the Oddz Options v2 version, which will include features such as option strategies, a secondary market, an auto exercise feature, the addition of more altcoins, deviation-based pools, and dynamic APY boosting features. All these features will be aimed at facilitating the growth of derivatives trading in the crypto space.

Derivatives in India have been an active market with National Stock Exchange being the largest derivatives exchange for the third consecutive year in 2021 by the number of contracts traded.

In recent years, with decentralised finance garnering global interest, the derivatives market for cryptocurrencies have been thriving as well.

“Over the last few months, we’ve seen a lot of momentum on Avalanche,” said Aishwarya Shivakumar, CEO of Oddz Finance. “When compared to other derivatives protocols currently operating within the network, Oddz is uniquely positioned to provide the best features that can benefit both the users and the ecosystem. It is also well-positioned to support many DEXs seeking more custom or sophisticated trading solutions beyond the more commonly available trading methods.”

Despite such rapid growth, the network currently has little going on in terms of derivates, and the number of protocols offering derivates products is not enticing users to engage with the Avalanche ecosystem. Oddz, on the other hand, aims to solve this by bringing the best of the best features via derivates. With features such as deviation-based pools, advanced options strategies, secondary market, and auto exercise features, the platform intends to power the entire Avalanche ecosystem.

Read more: What is driving India’s cryptocurrency market?

Additionally, Oddz recently completed its testnet on the Avalanche and received a positive response, with over 15000 people taking part in the program. Moreover, US$5.8 billion in $AVAX options were traded on the Testnet in just three weeks, with $BTC and $ETH volumes hovering at US$458 million and US$206 million, respectively.

The TradFi market for derivatives is already worth more than US$1 quadrillion, and Oddz offering these products in the DeFi space will further encourage mass adoption for the crypto ecosystem. Derivatives are establishing the framework for DeFi’s future, and Oddz’s proposition is to deliver the decentralized future across all chains.