CrossTower, a US-based cryptocurrency exchange, has launched on Monday an official branch in India amid regulatory tussles concerning the industry. According to Reuters, CrossTower already hired 35 people for the office and planned to expand it further to 100 for the upcoming six months.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndia will play a pivotal role, and we plan to use the country as a hub to expand into other geographies,\u201d Kapil Rathi, CrossTower\u2019s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, told Reuters in an interview. He also stated that the firm aims to strengthen its market share by bolstering technological resources to meet the high demand of the Indian crypto market.<\/p>\n
In fact, figures by Chianalysis suggest that the virtual currency market in the country has skyrocketed from $923 million in April 2020 to $6.6 billion in May 2021, as India keeps ranking in 11th place in terms of cryptocurrency adoption globally. \u201cWe believe we\u2019re taking a calculated risk,\u201d Rathi commented about how risky it is opening a crypto exchange branch in a country with unsolved topics surrounding regulatory affairs towards the cryptocurrency industry.<\/p>\n
The Indian government was scheduled to present a bill in March before the parliament to ban definitely cryptocurrencies, making trading and holding an illegal activity in the country. However, it wasn\u2019t on the discussion table, and the uncertainty remains alive, although the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) sought to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in December. However, there are no major updates about it as of press time.<\/p>\n