Crypto-wizard WazirX riding on the big wave of growth in the market
In a recent conversation with YourStory’s Daily Dispatch, Nischal Shetty, Founder and CEO, WazirX, talks about the surge in the cryptocurrency wave in India, and discusses how WazirX is establishing itself as a prominent name in the crypto space.
Founded in 2017, is an Indian platform for cryptocurrency and bitcoins exchange that has been making a mark in the Indian crypto market.
In a recent conversation with YourStory’s Daily Dispatch, Nischal Shetty, Founder, WazirX, shared that there has been a boom in the crypto market and the COVID-19 pandemic has been the biggest trigger for the market to take off people took to the online world in swarms.
“We saw a lot of people in India and globally getting into educating themselves around crypto,” he said. Upon understanding the concept, people want to get some exposure, which contributed to the surge in the numbers.
WazirX hit a million users at the beginning of the year in January 2021, which now has crossed the 10 million mark. Most of that massive growth has been organic, with people telling their friends about WazirX and crypto. Bitcoin has always been the best returning asset, a factor that has pushed growth.
Another important factor that has accelerated the growth of crypto is the entry of corporates and large funds. Apart from that, currently, regulators are waking up to the idea that regulating the sector is better than ignoring it or suppressing it, shared Nischal.
Nischal mentioned that currently they have about 10 million users on WazirX, and in India, there are about 15-20 million people who are into crypto. “If you look at the big picture, the internet population is about 4.73 billion so in that context it’s just 3 percent of the internet population which is into crypto today,” he said.
According to him, the adoption of crypto, especially in India, is going to increase at a rapid pace. In the last two to two-and-half years, there has been a 5x growth and this growth is expected to be accelerated even more. He added that with regulation coming in, it will nudge the industry towards the right track.
He mentioned that WazirX has essentially been profitable for a long time and they like the organic growth that has worked for them. The company believed in educating people about crypto and getting them onboard, and they would want to continue doing that.
Speaking about targets, at WazirX, the focus is more on trading volumes than revenue, noted Nischal. In December 2020, the platform was doing $500 million in monthly trading volume, which has now risen to $5-6 billion per month, a 10x growth. The platform is also focused on increasing the number of users on the platform. Apart from that, the focus will continue to be on bringing more liquidity, building the platform better, and making it more stable.
Nischal concluded that what’s being noticed is just the beginning of the regulatory processes, which is a good thing happening in the ecosystem.
Edited by Anju Narayanan