Small-Town India Embraces Cryptocurrency Trading

In Gujarat's Botad and Assam's Barbaka, families like the Patels, Shahs, Bordolios, and Baruas are finding common ground in their growing interest for cryptocurrencies. This trend, once concentrated in major metropolitan areas, is now rapidly expanding to tier-two and tier-three cities across India, as revealed by a report from CoinSwitch.

Balaji Srihari, Vice President of CoinSwitch, noted that the appeal of cryptocurrencies is growing among people, mostly under the age of 35, from smaller cities and towns like Botad, Barbaka, Jalandhar, Kanchipuram, and Patna. The Indian crypto ecosystem is evolving with investors diversifying their asset portfolios, ranging from meme coins to Layer-1 assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and DeFi tokens.

Local investors are increasingly attracted to meme coins, which account for about 13% of all crypto investments in the country. Dogecoin tops the list of most invested coins, while SHIB leads in trading volume. Despite steep taxes on crypto transactions—currently at 30% income tax and a 1% TDS on transactions exceeding Rs 50,000 annually—the rush to invest in cryptocurrencies remains strong.

Global developments, such as Donald Trump's election as US President and his nomination of crypto supporter Paul Atkins to lead the SEC, have further fueled the crypto rally. Bitcoin, for instance, has seen a 144% return so far in 2024, with a market cap of $2 trillion, making it larger than silver and about a tenth of gold's market capitalization, according to Ashish Singhal, co-founder of CoinSwitch.