Ashish Singhal News

Imagine a fixed-income investment advisor who tried out crypto assets and then got converted. That’s what happened with New Delhi-based Shiv Pande, who worked closely with pension and provident funds and became curious about the stupendous rise of crypto assets in 2021. He spent a year researching it and invested in it for the first time in July 2022.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Victims of the $233-million WazirX hack are preparing to sue the cryptocurrency exchange for damages in the national consumer forum after the firm’s Singapore-based parent won a four-month moratorium against legal proceedings in the city-state.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made no announcements regarding crypto taxes in the Budget, which the crypto industry views as a missed opportunity to support crypto startups and investors. «We had hoped the government would reduce taxation to align it with other asset classes. Unfortunately, this has not been addressed, representing a missed opportunity to support startups and investors in the crypto space,» said Ashish Singhal, Co-founder of Lemonn and CoinSwitch.

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recommended several regulators oversee crypto trade nationwide. This move has sparked considerable interest within India's crypto community, given the RBI's historically strict control over digital assets. It's important to highlight that since 2018, the RBI has maintained strict control over cryptocurrencies, forbidding banks and other regulated entities from facilitating crypto transactions. However, SEBI's recent proposal for a multi-regulator approach to oversee crypto trading has injected a sense of anticipation into the market.

London Stock Exchange to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum ETN market on May 28 “Even though ETF inflows have hit a drag, order books are loaded on the bid side around the 60k area, showing that the market is eager to buy the dip. You need to go get the liquidity at lower levels to then catch a bid and generate momentum to go higher," Nathanaël Cohen, co-founder at digital-asset hedge fund INDIGO Fund, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. The recent surge in Bitcoin ETF demand has significantly fueled this year's remarkable rally in the leading cryptocurrency.

In a panel discussion hosted by ETMarkets, CoinSwitch CEO Ashish Singhal expressed optimism regarding the regulatory landscape's evolving stance towards innovation within India's digital ecosystem. Singhal also shed light on the company's efforts to educate beginners, the growing interest of businesses in blockchain technology, interactions with regulatory authorities, and strategies for navigating the complex regulatory landscape. Edited excerpts:

CoinSwitch has become the first Indian crypto exchange to surpass 20 million registered users. 

Also Read | Bitcoin surge: Why should you still not invest in cryptos? These are 7 key reasons Commenting on the milestone, Ashish Singhal, Co-founder of CoinSwitch said, “Bull markets are a magnet for new users, and crypto is now on a bullish path. To be the most beginner-friendly crypto trading app has been the priority at CoinSwitch since day one.

CoinSwitch, a leading cryptocurrency trading platform, announced that it has surpassed 2 crore registered users, marking a significant milestone as the first platform in India to achieve this feat. This achievement comes amid a notable surge in user activity within India, fueled by growing investor optimism following developments such as the introduction of Bitcoin ETFs in the US, the potential approval of Ethereum ETFs, and the eagerly anticipated Bitcoin Halving event.

At 12:25 pm, Bitcoin was trading 0.3% lower at $51,814, while Ethereum was up 1.4% at $2,971. Meanwhile, the global cryptocurrency market cap fell 0.21% to around $1.97 trillion in the last 24 hours.

Apple has removed the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange Binance from its App Store after a show-cause notice was sent to nine such virtual digital asset (VDAs) service providers by the Finance Ministry for not complying with the country's money laundering laws. The company has also removed other apps like Kucoin, and OKX. The Financial Intelligence Unit, under the Finance Ministry, had last month issued show-cause notices to nine offshore VDA service providers, including Binance, for operating in the country without complying with money laundering laws. Last month, the Finance Ministry had also asked the IT Ministry to block the URLs of these crypto firms as they have been operating illegally in the country. Binance is already facing investigation in the US after being convicted of breaking anti-money laundering laws. Also Read | Bitcoin falls below $46,000 amid false ETF approval announcement

CoinSwitch, one of India's top cryptocurrency investment platforms, has unveiled PeepalCo, a new umbrella brand that will house all its business divisions as part of its wealth tech expansion. PeepalCo will house the following brands: CoinSwitch, the crypto retail app, and CoinSwitch PRO, the advanced trading platform; a soon-to-be-launched platform featuring newer investment classes; and a wealth-management division catering to High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNIs). The restructuring will empower each of these business units to maintain agility and drive innovation while upholding the utmost compliance and regulatory standards. Ashish Singhal, Co-founder & Group CEO of PeepalCo group; Govind Soni, Co-founder & Group CTO of PeepalCo group; and Vimal Sagar Tiwari, Co-founder & Group COO of PeepalCo group, will oversee the different initiatives within the PeepalCo group, with a professional management team responsible for guiding and operating each individual unit.

Finance ministers of G20 nations have now adopted the synthesis paper released by Financial Stability Board (FSB)  and International Monetary Fund (IMF) that carries a number of suggestions on regulations of cryptocurrencies.

Volumes in major crypto trading platforms in India have seen a hit following the high taxes imposed by the government. However, the progress that the country is making in bringing in regulations for this asset class has given hope to service providers such as CoinSwitch to see phenomenal growth in the crypto market. «The sunny side view is that India has made progress on crypto regulations with standards and rules on AML-CFT, data reporting and more. These standards enhance the transparency in the Indian crypto ecosystem, and provide an opportunity for the government to relook at the TDS rate,» Ashish Singhal, Co-founder and CEO of CoinSwitch, told ETMarkets in an interview. While trading volumes in crypto have recovered in 2023 from the sharp drop in 2022, pain pressures still seem to exist. How have volumes been on your platform so far this year? While there has been a recovery in the trading volumes since the beginning of this year, they have not touched the levels we saw in early 2022. This is a reflection of the continued uncertainty in the global macroeconomic outlook as well as India-specific headwinds such as the high TDS. The sunny side view is that India has made progress on crypto regulations with standards and rules on AML-CFT, data reporting and more. These standards enhance the transparency in the Indian crypto ecosystem, and provide an opportunity for the government to relook at the TDS rate. This would be in line with the spirit of G20 discussions on crypto, which is to arrive at a global standard.

Crypto investing app CoinSwitch on December 15 unveiled its new brand identity, with a logo, design change and a refreshed mobile app. The crypto unicorn is looking to diversify into wealth tech and other asset classes, and expects to launch its new offerings early next year, the company said.

Indian crypto entrepreneurs said they are implementing measures to provide full transparency on their reserve funds to win back investor confidence after the collapse of FTX, the world’s third-largest crypto exchange by trading volumes.

crypto world's most ambitious software upgrade, Ethereum completed a key revamp of its blockchain network-- the Merge. The second-largest crypto token has now moved to the proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism from Proof-of-Work (PoW). This is the first instance when an existing and running blockchain has made such a move. Following this, Ethereum's energy consumption will drastically drop by 99.9 per cent. Ethereum developers say the upgrade will make the network – which houses a $60 billion ecosystem of crypto exchanges, lending companies, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces and other apps – more secure and scalable. Following the merge, there was immediate price action in Ethereum as the token was hovering around $1,600 levels, seesawing between red and green.

crypto market cap slipped below the $1 trillion mark again as the US Fed vowed to continue the monetary hawkishness adopted earlier this year.Bitcoin fell below $20,000 on Sunday as part of a wider cryptocurrency-market retreat, amid concern about the Federal Reserve's rate-hike path, Reuters reported. Barring BNB, all other top tokens were trading in the red on Monday. Avalanche plunged as much as 10 per cent, whereas Polygon tumbled 5 per cent. XRP and Cardano declined 4 per cent each. The global cryptocurrency market cap was trading lower at the $951.77 billion mark, falling as much as 2 per cent in the last 24 hours. However, the total trading volume dropped about 17 per cent close to $54.09 billion.

The recent searches carried out by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at the premises of CoinSwitch Kuber were not related to alleged money laundering, Ashish Singhal, the chief executive officer of the cryptocurrency exchange, was reported as saying on August 27.

CoinSwitch has announced to launch Web3 Discovery Fund, the company’s corporate venture capital initiative. The aforesaid fund will invest in and incubate early-stage startups building blockchain solutions for the rapidly evolving Web3 landscape. The Web3 Discovery Fund will curate portfolio startups and provide single-window access to marquee investor partners Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Woodstock Fund and Elevation Capital (ex-SAIF partners), and incubation partner Buidlers Tribe.

Crypto Assets Council (BACC) on Thursday. IAMAI had created BACC four years earlier. The association, in its official statement, said it was forced to make the decision as the regulatory environment for the industry is still very uncertain. IAMAI claimed that the association has limited resources and it would like to utilise them for other emerging digital sectors, which make a more immediate and direct contribution to digital India.