‘If not an entrepreneur, I would be a freelancer’: Sumit Gupta of CoinDCX

Mumbai-based cryptocurrency startup CoinDCX started in 2018 with the mission to make crypto accessible to Indians—the same year when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a banking ban on crypto transactions. 

But co-founders Neeraj Khandelwal and Sumit Gupta were focused on one thing: to drive Web3 adoption in India. 

Fast forward to 2021, CoinDCX became the first crypto startup in India to enter the unicorn club (valued at over $1 billion). About five years since its inception, CoinDCX is one of the few crypto startups that fought the battle and held ground. 

Over the years, it has become one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms. The Mumbai-based startup is backed by marquee investors, including Bain Capital Ventures, Pantera Capital, Steadview Capital, Coinbase, and more. 

In an earlier conversation with YourStory, Gupta said, “We have seen several ups and downs in our journey. What helped was us keeping our heads down, focusing on what we had to do and building.” 

More recently, in January this year, YourStory reported that the startup’s Indian entity, Neblio Technologies, had turned profitable. 

Gupta, an alumnus of IIT Mumbai, along with his co-founder, has ignited the crypto revolution in the country. He is also the founding member of the Bharat Web3 Association and has been included in the Fortune 40 Under 40 and Hurun India lists, among others.

While much has been said and discussed about CoinDCX and the man behind it—Gupta—YS Life recently reached out to the Web3 leader to get a peek into his life beyond cryptocurrency for the Rapid Fire with YS Life column. 

Edited excerpts from the conversation:

YS Life [YSL]: Three words that best describe you?

Sumit Gupta [SG]: Adaptable, humble, and go-getter.

YSL: What would you be if not an entrepreneur? 

SG: I would be a freelancer working on solving different problems, which would help me make enough money to travel around the world. 

YSL: Two celebrities that you don’t mind getting stuck in an elevator with? 

SG: Elon Musk and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

YSL: Entrepreneur that you look up to for inspiration?

SG: Brian Armstrong and Ratan Tata. 

YSL: A word to describe the crypto market? 

SG: Transformative—enough to build a better society!

YSL: The one thing that you hate about your job? 

SG: The one thing I dislike about my job is the people-related challenges that come along with increasing team size and managing individual expectations.

YSL: If there's one thing that you could do differently in your early 20's, what would it be? 

SG: Spend more quality time with the whole family, as those were the years when everyone lived together. 

YSL: Eating at home or eating out? 

SG: I prefer eating at home, especially the meals cooked by me and my wife together. Very satisfying!

YSL: Staying in or going out? 

SG: Going out on road trips and midnight walks. 

YSL: What is your idea of perfect happiness? 

SG: To be able to do whatever we want to do. Happiness is equal to reality minus the expectations. The best part about this is it’s a metric totally in our control. 

YSL: An overrated virtue? 

SG: Perfectionism. In my opinion, there is nothing perfect about being perfect. Our job as humans is to get things done and keep moving forward.

YSL: An occasion when you lie? 

SG: When I want to not share work-related things with parents, as they won’t have the full context and would give them unnecessary stress.

YSL: Your greatest achievement? 

SG: My (whatever) small contributions are towards building the Indian Web3 ecosystem in such a challenging yet dynamic environment. 

YSL: Your most treasured possession?  

SG: The relationships I have made with people around me in this journey of life.

YSL: A quality you value the most in a person?

SG: Authenticity is highly underrated. It makes things so simple to deal with.