Online tax filing startup ClearTax is offering bitcoins (BTC) for referrals

Tuesday July 22, 2014 , 3 min Read

ClearTax is a startup that helps Individuals file their Tax returns online. The company recently became the first India focused company to be backed by YCombinator and during the interview Archit Gupta, the co-founder, mentioned their inclination towards bold exciting moves. "Getting into YC wasn't an India v/s the world thing but purely a decision that emerged from our reasoning that YC probably has the most ambitious people in the world and it would be the best for ClearTax," said Archit during our phone conversation. Staying true to that, the startup is now giving out Bitcoins to its users.

What are Bitcoins?

If you have been living under a stone, the concept of cryptocurrency would be alien but well- Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency invented by Satoshi Nakomoto. One of the many cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has taken the world by storm with retailers like Dell and Overstock accepting it for payments online. (read more)

What is ClearTax doing?

ClearTax is offering INR 20 mobile recharge to every user who refers another user, and three times that value in BTC (bitcoin). "We are giving away $1 (Rs. 60) worth of Bitcoin for every successful referral!" says Archit. The campaign is primarily a rather innovative marketing hack.

Why is ClearTax doing it?

"It’ll be interesting to see how many people are interested in Bitcoin vs a mobile recharge. We are also giving three times the value in Bitcoin. This for us is an experiment as we are very excited about Bitcoin in ClearTax. Savvy users will prefer to take bitcoin and they can trade it online or convert it to cash if they want!" says Archit

The idea of giving out bitcoins arose from the pain of receiving payments online. "Existing mechanisms are broken for a majority of customers. We think cryptocurrency may offer a way forward to transact cheaply online and on mobile phones. There is a lot of innovation happening in the space and we are happy to promote bitcoin adoption if people are willing to experiment with this. Bitcoin also has the fastest growing ecosystem for payments online," he adds.

ClearTax has collaborated with a finance startup based in San Francisco to facilitate the process. For claiming some Bitcoins, a user needs to go to http://cleartax.in/Entity/Referral -- and log in where a unique code will be generated.

The offer was made live today early morning and will be on till the entire tax season in India. For filing a return, a user has to do is upload their Form-16 and the user’s tax return is prepared to view and edit. Typically, a user can finish e-Filing in 15-20 minutes since the time they upload their Form-16. ClearTax claims to be the fastest growing tax filing startup in India and this marketing hack might prove to be another big push in their growth story.