Moving Towards Decentralization

Money is an aspect that is extremely important to how a nation works. Almost every transaction is monetary in nature and money is issued by a body that is central to the nation's functioning. The world is heavily dependent on the existence of Fiat money that has been used over the years to fulfil the exchange of value.

The launch of Bitcoin in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto resulted in the world's first decentralised currency. Bitcoin paved a path for crypto to come up as an entire sector. The term 'decentralised' means that a community of people coming together and recognising a particular entity or a token being accepted as a form of exchange of value.

"As a concept, humans have used decentralised money. Centralised money came in recently after the first and the second world war. Currency was not mandated over the years in our history and that is why it worked. With Bitcoin coming into the picture, we are asking ourselves a question that can we go back to decentralised money?," said Avinash Shekhar, CEO, Zebpay.

Gold was the popular currency back in the days of kings and queens and fiat money was backed with the gold that governments had. However, after President Nixon removed the gold backing in '71, the fiats were backed by the government's word. The centralised banks of the sovereign countries that control the sovereign currencies that control the supply .

"Arts are used for money launderers and so has Bitcoin. These have been used as methods to launder money but people also see them as a way of investing money. Fiat money is also used for laundering. However, the solution lies in plugging the loopholes in the system," said Shivam Thakral, co-founder and CEO, BuyUCoin.

India has recognized the potential of crypto and with the crypto sector being a marathon and not a sprint, India has an active and growing ecosystem in the crypto space. There remains a section of the Indian demography that wants to invest in an asset class that is growing extremely fast as compared to any other asset class. India is supposedly going to be one of the top economies in the next decade with a lot of cash flow and interest in crypto. The crypto ecosystem has massive adoption in the country but due to the missing regulations in the country, the innovation is moving abroad.

" The Web3 products are flourishing in India whereas the crypto exchanges are sort of going down. I see a lot of developers and a lot of developer-friendly, a lot of protocols coming in but the companies are registering their IPs in Dubai and Singapore. We are pushing the talent away due to the harsh stance. We have the best Web3 talent and we need to embrace crypto," said Amanjot Malhotra, Country Head-India, Bitay.

Crypto has been as a sector been written-off. However, there remains a scope for growth in the sector with other countries adopting the same and recognising different cryptocurrencies. It remains to be seen whether India will change its stance.