The year 2022 was a bleak one for cryptocurrency the world over. A digital asset class that had generated incredible excitement for a few years and was well on its way to becoming a mainstream investment option for digital natives, suddenly went into free fall. Prices fell-even the largest ones by market capitalisation, like Bitcoin, Ether and Dogecoin, lost over 50% of their value. And then the unthinkable happened: FTX Trading Ltd, a $32 billion (around ₹2.6 trillion) crypto firm, filed for bankruptcy in November. It led investors to withdraw $6 billion over 72 hours and FTX's founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested and now faces a trial.
Ashish Singhal, co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch, India's leading cryptocurrency trading company and the makers of an app that lets users trade in cryptocurrencies across exchanges, believes 2022 was a "stress test". "It was a hard time for the crypto ecosystem. But we believe market conditions are improving slowly. Earlier this week, Bitcoin crossed $30,000 for the first time since June 2022."
In August 2022, the company, along with nine others in the Indian crypto space, too was subject to an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate for possible contraventions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act. A company spokesperson told Mint at the time that the company was cooperating with the agency. There have been no further developments.
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