Crypto trading booms in India’s interiors as job growth and incomes disappoint

LIKE thousands of his countrymen in far-flung places, flower shop owner Ashish Nagose has been learning about trading cryptocurrencies by attending classes every weekday for the past two months in his home city of Nagpur in western India.

Nagose has bought and sold stock options earlier but is now venturing into cryptocurrencies as regulators have made it harder to trade equity derivatives in India. The 28-year-old believes the red-hot crypto asset class can help shield his family-owned flower shop during downturns.

“I want to run my family shop, and hope that trading can provide a steady income when business slows down, like in the month after (the Hindu festival of) Diwali,” he said, seated at the storefront surrounded by bunches of red roses and orange marigolds.

Newfound crypto enthusiasts in India such as Nagose have helped grow cumulative trading volumes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies on four of its largest exchanges more than two-fold quarter-on-quarter to US$1.9 billion in the October to December quarter, according to data from aggregator CoinGecko.

Many young Indians are dabbling in crypto trading to supplement their regular income in the world’s most populous country where jobs and pay increases have lagged world-beating economic growth. Nearly two-thirds of its 1.4 billion people are below the age of 35, according to a government report.

From stocks and derivatives, they are now gravitating towards crypto assets whose prices have soared after US President Donald Trump’s election victory in November promised a looser regulatory regime for the asset.

“There is a lot of curiosity at the ground level ... especially with Trump becoming the US president and the entire flavour of crypto changing the world over,” said Edul Patel, co-founder of Mudrex, an Indian crypto exchange.

Overall, India’s crypto market is expected to grow to more than US$15 billion in 2035 from US$2.5 billion last year at a compound annual growth rate of 18.5 per cent, said Kush Wadhwa, partner at consulting firm Grant Thornton Bharat.

Retail traders have driven the bulk of the interest in the asset, according to exchange executives, even as ETFs and institutions have pushed up crypto prices globally.

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Out of the top 10 centres that propelled crypto activity in India in 2024, seven were lower-tiered cities, such as Jaipur, Lucknow and Pune, according to CoinSwitch, one of India’s largest crypto platforms.

“Growth is now being driven by non-metro cities. That’s true for the stock world and it’s true for crypto,” said Balaji Srihari, vice-president at CoinSwitch which has 20 million users.

The surging interest may challenge Indian authorities who have discouraged trading in cryptocurrencies by levying steep taxes and have warned against their risks and volatility.

But that has not stopped 25-year-old Sagar Neware, a Nagpur-based mechanical engineer, from spending his nights trading them.

“My father had to shut down his plastic packaging business a few years back so my first dream is to restart it with the money I can earn from trading,” said Neware, who earns 25,000 rupees (S$385) a month from working at the local transport office.

To hone their crypto trading skills, Neware and about two dozen others gather at the Thoughts Magic Trading Academy in Nagpur each weekday.

Yash Jaiswal, an equity options trader who runs the classes in a shop room, said he has tutored about 1,500 people over the last two years.

“You are just one trade away from your dream life,” said a poster on the wall of the classroom.

Macroeconomic risk

Who has regulatory oversight of cryptocurrencies in India is unclear.

While the 30 per cent tax it levies on crypto trading gains is among the most stringent globally, the country, unlike most G-20 nations, has neither introduced new norms to govern crypto nor folded it under existing securities rules. It has also not imposed an outright ban on it.

Reuters reported last year that India’s market regulator has signalled it is open to oversight of crypto trade, but the government is still to take a view.

The central bank, though, has continued to warn against it.

“Widespread usage of crypto assets and stablecoins has consequences for macroeconomic and financial stability,” it said in its Financial Stability Report in December 2024.

India’s federal finance ministry, the central bank and the market regulator did not respond to e-mails seeking comment. REUTERS