The Brain Behind the Crypto Bourse

The story of Unocoin, India’s first exchange for trading in cryptocurrency, and the way forward for the virtual currency

Since when have you been interested in cryptocurrencies and why?

I was always keen on learning technologies and using them across various verticals. I worked as a techie in one of the prominent IT MNC. When I completed my masters in Management, I decided to tackle some of the financial disparity with the help of technology. Blockchain was new and exciting and I could see problems that came with traditional investment methods and institutions. It was in 2013 in one of the meetups when I met Sunny, who was also a blockchain and crypto enthusiast that we finally decided to build what we all know as Unocoin today.

What made you enter the cryptocurrency space in India? What propelled you to set up an exchange? Where did you get your funding for setting up the exchange? Tell us about your promoters and financiers.

By 2013 blockchain technology was emerging. I was a techie, a management graduate and an Indian who realised that there are a lot of problems that Indians face, which revolve around the usage of traditional currency and transactions. The hidden transaction fees, foreign exchange rates, extra and filthy taxes, etc were on a higher side and this needed a solution that was backed by unbiased technology. Setting up an exchange was not an expensive task given I had a bunch of software developers from my previous business. I just had to pull a couple of them out of that team and start working on building Unocoin. Ours is a four-member co-founding team and all four of us are coming from varying experience and background which in total could form pretty much an invincible team to build a startup like Unocoin.

What issues have you been facing while running a cryptocurrency exchange in India?