Gadgets
Unocoin on Bringing Bitcoin to Billions in India
The company had a rocky couple of years that included being arrested for installing a crypto ATM in a Bangalore mall, and an intense battle with RBI at the Supreme Court. However, the co-founders stuck on with their goal of bringing ‘Bitcoin to the Billions’. Unocoin is now 74 employees strong and daily trading on the platform is roughly at Rs. 10 crores. It is now a trading platform for 30+ different kinds of cryptocurrencies and the company hopes to be India’s first crypto assets exchange to file for IPO.
Expert Opinion: TechArc chief analyst, Faisal Kawoosa says, “Cryptocurrency is a reality. We can’t deny it. It’s good to see that India is making early inroads into it. However, the concern is ambiguity around its legality. I think we need to have a clear vision about that so that all have confidence to grow it and benefit from it.”
We spoke to COO and Co-Founder of Unocoin, Harish BV to know a bit more about the company’s journey, its unique product offering, and its future plans.
COO and Co-Founder of Unocoin, Harish BV
1. What were you doing before Unocoin?
I was working in the Wireless Internet Service Provider segment and also dabbling in manufacturing of wireless antennas.
2. What was the conceptualisation process behind Unocoin? How did you and your co-founders meet?
Unocoin is India’s first crypto assets exchange platform launched in 2013. We launched our exchange in 2013 because India didn’t have any reliable source to buy and sell Bitcoins. I and my co-founder Sathvik are 15-year-old friends. We both met Sunny, our other co-founder, in Bitcoin meetups. Sunny was the one arranging Bitcoin meetups in Bangalore.
3. What pushed you guys to finally register for this crypto-exchange company?
In 2013, Bitcoin was very new in India and our goal was to bring Bitcoins to billion Indians. In those days, there was no proper platform to buy or sell Bitcoin. In our Bitcoin meetups, people were asking us where they could buy or sell Bitcoins. We saw the big gap and tried to fill it with Unocoin.
4. Could you elaborate what Unocoin is, how it works, who are your investors, and so on?
Unocoin is a Broker service and trading platform of 30+ different kinds of crypto. We support a Systematic investment plan for our customers where one can invest as low as Rs.10 daily, Weekly or Monthly. Earn Interest option to earn the interest by parking the idle crypto, Get Instant Fiat loan without selling BTC by just pledging BTC. Crypto basket where one can make the buy the cryptos by allocating the right amount for various cryptos. Our major investors are Digital Currency Group (Barry Silbert), Draper Associates (Tim Draper), Blume Ventures, Boost VC.
5. Cryptocurreny has become popular in western markets. How far behind is India in getting there?
India is picking up, especially since after we won in Supreme Court in March 2020. The next two years are very important for India to catch up with western markets. India has a huge young population that is tech-savvy, and cryptocurrency is treated as Digital Gold among the young generation.
6. Could you explain why cryptocurrencies are so volatile in nature and have such sporadic swings?
Compared to the early years, crypto assets are now much less volatile. Most of it depends on some news headlines, regulation, and demand and supply. In the early years, only a few people were involved in Bitcoin exchange and that is why it was so volatile. As the market expands and large people adopt to the practice, then the volatility will decrease in the next five years or so.
7. The government is rumoured to pass a law to ban all cryptocurrencies. What do you have to say about that?
The government is confused about cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets. Bitcoins and all the other cryptocurrencies are always treated as digital assets and not as currency. We are continuously working with government agencies. We hope the government will appoint a standing committee and give all stakeholders an option to submit their views on crypto-assets for the Indian ecosystem.
8. Could you share some of the big milestones you’ve crossed since inception?
Winning against Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the Supreme Court last year was a big step. I was an Individual applicant in RBI vs IAMAI case. RBI first issued its ban on banks’ dealings with crypto businesses back in April 2018. In 2020, SC reversed the ban in favour of cryptocurrency.
9. Could you help give a sense of how far Unocoin has come? From when it began to where it is now
We started our company in 2013 with three employees and now we have more than 70. Regarding our user base, we are now serving 1.5 million customers all over India. Our active monthly users are approximately around 100,000 and we have witnessed 50 percent year over year growth. Our daily trading is roughly at Rs. 10 crores.
10. Is there any particular incident that is monumental in Unocoin’s journey? Please share that incident with our readers.
We installed India’s first Bitcoin ATM machine in 2018 because RBI restricted Banks to provide a bank account for cryptocurrency users. To give confidence to our cryptocurrency investors in India we installed a Bitcoin ATM so that investors don’t panic to sell their holdings and cash out the fiat.
As regulators thought we are doing something wrong for customers, they have taken very hash steps of arresting me and my partner Sathvik. As an entrepreneur, we need to be strong and face the problems. One must not be scared to try new things if the ultimate motto is good for society.
11. Any advice for young Indian entrepreneurs out there? What is your management mantra?
One must try new things with their passion, dedication and not to be scared of their failures.
12. Where do you see Unocoin in the next five years?
To go for India’s first crypto assets exchange into IPO.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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