Singaporean crypto exchange enters India amid regulatory uncertainty

Singapore’s Coinstore crypto exchange has allotted $20 million to open three new offices in the Indian market.

Despite India’s unpredictive stance toward crypto regulations, Singaporean crypto exchange Coinstore has allocated a $20-million fund to set up three new offices in the Indian cities of Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.

Coinstore announced to launch its web and app platform in India for spot and futures trading, opening up a new crypto investment avenue for Indian investors. The platform mandates Know Your Customer verification before allowing users to purchase and sell over 50 cryptocurrencies.

#Coinstore is very excited to be bringing our services to our users in India!

Thank you so much for your unwavering support towards Coinstore, as we continue to expand our services!

▶️https://t.co/I08SlB4iBK
https://t.co/PqYgSafgF8 #BTC #ETH #DOGE #crypto #exchanges https://t.co/Ae29cTBSpi

— Coinstore (@coinstore_en) November 29, 2021

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Coinstore head of marketing Charles Tan expressed optimism regarding the development of a positive crypto regulatory framework in India:

“Strict KYC process, security requirement for exchanges, as well as gradual regulation of certain cryptocurrencies naturally protects the Indian users and would clarify the legality of certain cryptocurrencies.”

Currently, Coinstore has registered over 60,000 users from India and expects up to 10x–20x growth in the region in the near future. Citing Coinstore’s goal to simplify crypto adoption and trading experience, co-founder Jennifer Lu said:

“We are truly excited to have launched our app in India. With over 20% of our active users from India, we decided to start local operations to fully support our Indian users.”

Based on the exchange’s data, Tan also pointed out that “an average Singaporean user tends to buy and hodl for long-term gains, while the Indian Coinstore users have shown to be enterprising traders and view trading crypto as a way to yield profits.”

Complimenting the plan to set up offices in India, Coinstore has also announced 100 immediate local openings for customer support, marketing and operations division. According to Lu:

“The $20-million fund allocated for the India expansion will be utilized mainly for marketing, hiring talent, and development of crypto-related products and services for the Indian market.”

Related: Crypto prices in India tumble after crypto bill announced

The Indian parliament announced it would introduce 26 new bills in the Winter Session, which include a crypto bill that aims to ban private cryptocurrencies while creating an official digital currency.

While the bill is yet to clarify the meaning of the word “private,” the announcement sparked a temporary panic sell-off on the WazirX crypto exchange. As a result, Bitcoin’s (BTC) price dropped 14.8% locally on the exchange within two hours.