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We are creating a simplified investing ecosystem: Crypto unicorn CoinSwitch

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Crypto is an emerging yet attractive asset class. It is a $1.25 trillion market globally. The India adoption story is no different with nearly 20 million unique users, over $6.6 billion in investments and more than a billion dollars in venture capital funding.

India is already the second-largest in terms of crypto adoption globally.

Crypto in India has come a long way but this is just the beginning — Crypto is a billion people industry in the making.

Govind Soni, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, CoinSwitch, India’s largest crypto investing app, told IANS that their priority is to make it transparent, trustworthy and secure, and enable Indians to participate in this technology shift in a meaningful way.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Why is Crypto important, and how can India benefit from it?

A: Crypto is the gateway to a decentralised internet. The computing power of the billions of devices around the world can be utilised and incentivised using Crypto to build a new internet, called Web3.

India has the opportunity to take the lead in this transformation. We have the talent, users and the startup ecosystem. And we are witnessing an upskilling and migration of India’s large pool of engineers and developers to the cutting-edge and advanced field of blockchain and crypto.

All this puts India in a sweet spot. With an enabling regulatory environment, India can get a headstart and steer the direction of Web3 while it is built.

Q: Crypto has come a long way. Every day we hear news that even Wall Street giants are adopting Crypto. Why is that?

A: Institutional adoption is a sign that Crypto has well and truly grown beyond white papers to be a smart investment class. The origin of Crypto may have been based on an idea of a digital currency, but now it has evolved to become an attractive, emerging asset class.

There are several interesting use-cases being built on this technology. That is the intrinsic value of Crypto: The confidence and uptake of the underlying blockchain technology. Institutional investors understand this and have done their due diligence.

While retail investors continue to be the early adopters and torchbearers of Cryptos, growing institutional adoption underlines the fact that this is an asset class that is here to stay.

Even traditional markets are adopting and gaining exposure to Cryptos. All of this bodes well for the growth of the asset class.

Q: What about India? There is regulatory uncertainty on Crypto here. Do you see this changing and Crypto becoming a mainstream asset class here?

A: Certainly. Cryptos are an emerging asset class that speak to India’s digital-savvy population.

With regulatory clarity, institutional investors too will find the confidence to invest in and benefit from Cryptos.

As we have seen globally, Cryptos can attract significant institutional and foreign investments if regulations can enable innovations and provide the necessary guardrails. India can benefit similarly.

Innovations such as decentralised finance, or DeFi, can be an effective and fast enabler of capital for small and medium-scale businesses in India. Crypto is also paving the way for interesting applications such as decentralized social media that Indians can greatly benefit from.

Q: How is CoinSwitch protecting investors on its platform?

A: At CoinSwitch, investor protection is of utmost importance to us. While we have been using various digital platforms to inform, educate and engage with new crypto enthusiasts, we are continuously updating our app to help users make informed investing decisions.

And, numbers tell the story. The average time a user spends on our app reading, buying, selling, or trading has gone up to 27 minutes from 13 minutes in January 2021.

In line with our ongoing product feature upgrades to tighten platform security, we have launched Riskometer — our attempt to help users think twice before investing in a coin. The Riskometer provides a risk warning on coins that are highly volatile, or when the risk assessment suggests that users need to proceed with caution while investing.

We understand that ensuring compliance with relevant regulations is key to ensuring a safe, secure, and trustworthy user experience. Users on our platform can utilise their account balances (of Indian Rupees and crypto assets) to only transact on our platform or withdraw Indian Rupees. They can only deposit Indian Rupees from their verified bank account. Similarly, after selling crypto assets, users can withdraw Indian Rupees only to their verified bank account.

Q: What does cloud technology enable you to do better?

A: Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows to scale up on infrastructure and services without having any dependencies, or minimum usage commitments. AWS continues to make incremental improvements to its solutions and services, allowing us to easily deliver value to our customers. If we had to build these capabilities on our own it would have taken us significantly longer. With the shared responsibility model, security of the cloud is addressed by AWS and this helps us considerably reduce our efforts towards security and compliance. AWS account team and Enterprise Support provides proactive guidance and support as we scale our platforms. AWS is the easy answer for any internet-based ecosystem that wants to scale faster.

CoinSwitch is trusted by over 18 million registered users, making it the largest crypto investing app in India. Ours is a built-to-scale platform developed on top of AWS. Among a host of things, AWS has improved our time to market, handle spikes in traffic, and manage risks more efficiently. All of these put together help us provide a simplified and secure user experience on the app.

National

Hindi ‘imposition’ row: Raj Thackeray to organise morcha on July 6

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Mumbai, June 26: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Thursday announced to organise a morcha from Girgaum to Azad Maidan in Mumbai on July 6 to protest against the “imposition” of Hindi as the third language in Marathi and English schools.

He alleged that it was a conspiracy to destroy the Marathi language, which has recently been awarded Classical Status, saying that the party will not allow the “imposition” of the Hindi language in the state.

Raj Thackeray was speaking to the reporters after meeting School Education Minister Dadaji Bhuse.

“There will be no compulsion in the language, be it Hindi or any other. I am appealing to all the parties that on July 6, we have decided to take out a morcha from Girgaum. There will be no flags in this morcha. It will be a morcha of Marathi people; we are inviting everyone. I have chosen Sunday so that everyone can come,” said Raj Thackeray.

He added that all literary figures, Marathi lovers, film personalities and all political parties should participate in the morcha.

“We should come together for Maharashtra without any arguments,” he said.

Speaking about his meeting with Minister Bhuse, Raj Thackeray said that there is a shortage of teachers for the Hindi language. But the government is saying that it will recruit 10,000 teachers.

“Do you have the money to pay the salaries? There are many big issues before the state, so why is it coming to the language? Is there an attempt to hide something big?” he asked.

“Will you get work in films by learning Hindi? Maharashtra is big because of the education system. Then why this argument in favour of Hindi to make Maharashtra great,” Raj Thackeray said.

“If the government is going to promote arts and sports to increase the merits of students instead of a language, then we have no objection,” he said.

Raj Thackeray said that his party does not accept the government’s stand on Hindi at all.

“We will remain opposed to the imposition of Hindi,” he said.

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Business

No toll proposed for 2-wheelers, says Nitin Gadkari amid viral reports

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New Delhi, June 26: Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, on Thursday dismissed media reports suggesting that two-wheelers will be required to pay tolls on National Highways from July 15.

He called the reports misleading and clarified that no such proposal is under consideration.

Taking to social media platform X, the Union Minister said: “Some media houses are spreading misleading news about toll tax being levied on two-wheelers. No such decision has been proposed.”

“Two-wheelers will continue to be exempt from tolls. Spreading such baseless news without verifying the facts is not responsible journalism. I strongly condemn it,” the Union Minister stated.

The clarification comes after a report claimed that toll payment would soon be made mandatory for two-wheelers at all national highway toll plazas, and that riders would need to equip their vehicles with FASTag.

The report also claimed that violators could face penalties of up to Rs 2,000. This comes just days after Gadkari announced a new annual FASTag pass worth Rs 3,000 for private four-wheelers, aimed at simplifying toll payments and reducing congestion.

Set to launch on August 15, the pass will be valid for one year or 200 trips — whichever comes first — and can be activated via the Rajmarg Yatra app or official websites of the NHAI and the MoRTH.

The government has significantly expanded its highway infrastructure in the last decade, with the total length of national highways increasing from 91,287 km in 2014 to 1,46,204 km in 2024 — a rise of over 60 per cent.

The pace of highway construction has also tripled from 11.6 km/day in 2014 to 34 km/day in 2024.

As of now, 1,366 highway projects covering 32,366 km are under construction across the country, many of which are expected to be completed in phases by FY 2028.

With a 570 per cent increase in the road transport and highways budget over the last decade, the Centre continues to prioritise infrastructure development — but for now, two-wheeler riders can rest assured that tolls are not on the horizon.

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National

SC agrees to hear plea against Maratha quota law in July

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New Delhi, June 26: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear, in July, a plea challenging the decision of the Bombay High Court, which had directed that the interim order passed last year, allowing the Maratha community to avail 10 per cent reservation in educational institutions and public employment, will continue to remain in force.

After a lawyer mentioned the matter for urgent listing, a Bench of Justices K.V. Viswanathan and N.K. Singh assured of listing the plea on the re-opening of the top court (i.e. after July 14).

In an order passed on June 11 this year, the Bombay High Court allowed the Maratha community to provisionally avail the benefit of 10 per cent reservation, subject to the final outcome of the petitions challenging the validity of the contentious Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backwards Classes (SEBC) Act, 2024.

The SEBC Act, allowing 10 per cent quota for the Maratha community, was passed by the previous Eknath Shinde-led government in February last year after the Justice (retd) Sunil Shukre-led Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC) opined that “exceptional circumstances and extraordinary situations exist” to grant benefit of quota to Maratha community beyond the 50 per cent threshold.

Notably, the Supreme Court had struck down a similar quota law enacted by the Maharashtra legislature in 2018 for having breached the 50 per cent cap fixed in the 1992 landmark Indra Sawhney case (Mandal Commission case).

A five-judge Constitution Bench, in its judgment passed in May 2021, had opined that it could not find any exceptional circumstances or extraordinary situation for allowing a 12-13 per cent quota for the Maratha community and struck down the Maharashtra Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) Act, 2018.

Further, the Supreme Court had declared that states do not have the power to prepare lists for socially and educationally backward classes and ruled that the President had the sole power to identify a community as backward.

It had also declined to entertain the review plea moved by the Maharashtra government seeking a relook at the judgment. Before this, the apex court had dismissed a plea by the Union government seeking reconsideration of the May 5, 2021, judgment.

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