Bithumb to enter the Indian market

The Indian cryptocurrency market has been full of turmoil and while many would be put off by the many challenges in the country, Bithumb sees an opportunity. The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange is reportedly in talks with Indian regulators as it plans to set up shop in the country.

Bithumb Global, the international arm of the Korean exchange, is in talks with Indian regulators as it seeks to build a regulated exchange in the country, a report by Economic Times has revealed. The report states that Bithumb will partner with local crypto exchanges as it seeks to venture into the embattled Indian crypto industry.

And it’s not just on the exchange front that Bithumb intends to venture, the report continued. It intends to fund local cryptocurrency startups as well as introduce new initiatives for Indian traders, the co-founder and managing director Javier Sim stated.

“We are open to talking to regulators, working with them to be a regulated exchange. We are a strong brand from Korea and do not involve ourselves in unregulated or illegal trade,” he said.

The move into India is a big call for the exchange, given the hostile market conditions for crypto firms in the Asian country. The financial regulators have been widely opposed to the rising use of cryptos, with an inter-ministerial panel suggesting a blanket ban on cryptos in July.

The panel criticized cryptos as having no intrinsic value. Moreover, it suggested that whoever mines, holds, sells, transfers or issues crypto should face a fine and imprisonment for up to ten years.

The hostility has forced crypto exchanges in the country to either seek greener pastures by setting up shop abroad or risk going out of business. One of the casualties to the harsh conditions was Cryptokart, an exchange which was forced to shut down operations in June citing difficult working conditions.

A month prior, Mumbai-based Koinex had shut down as well after finding it excruciatingly difficult to access the most basic banking services. Koinex had been very successful before the shutdown, reporting over $3 billion worth of trades on its platform which had over 1 million users.

Bithumb Global launched version 1.0 recently, with plenty of upgrades to go with it. The move into India comes two months after the exchange launched in Singapore in partnership with local crypto exchange, Bitholic.