Coinbase Ventures has announced a plan to invest $1 million in cryptocurrency and Web3 initiatives in India. The investment will be done through an in-person pitching event held in Bengaluru on April 8.
Coinbase to invest in Indian crypto and Web3 initiatives
The CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, published a blog post in which he said that the investment division of the exchange was looking toward investing in software talent based in India. The target was crypto and Web3 technologies, which aid in boosting the country’s economic growth and financial inclusion.
The in-person pitch day to be held on April 8 in Bengaluru will partner with Buidlers Tribe. Further support will be granted by Belief DAO to offer bonus grants of up to $25,000. The co-founder of Buidlers, Pareen Lathia, noted that firms based in India were excited to achieve a global reach in their operations.
Lathia noted that the controversy was a “paradigm shift” for crypto operations in the country and that the regulatory framework would change with time. Armstrong noted that this was not the first investment Coinbase made in India’s crypto sector.
Coinbase has previously invested another $150M in crypto and web3 companies based in India, and it is planning to hire 1000 employees for the Coinbase Indian tech hub. “India is a magical place, and I believe crypto has a big future here. We’re excited to help build that future, and this event is an important step,” he said.
The Coinbase exchange has been committed to achieving regulatory compliance in its operations. The exchange has managed to achieve compliance in the US despite regulatory hurdles, and it is currently the largest exchange in the US. As a publicly listed exchange in the US, Coinbase is expected to play a notable role in influencing the regulatory path to be followed by the US.
Crypto regulations in India
Foreign investors now have a renewed interest in India because of the crypto tax law that went into effect on April 1. This tax law requires that Indian citizens pay a 30% tax on unrealized gains. The tax will apply to individual trading pairs, and the profits on one trading pair will not be used to offset the losses on another trading pair.
The finance minister in India, Nirmala Sitharaman, has previously stated that this tax law does not mean that cryptocurrencies have been legalized. Despite the uncertainty regarding cryptocurrencies, the state government of Maharashtra in India has adopted the Polygon blockchain to develop caste certificates during the Digital India campaign.
The state government also teamed up with Legit Doc to distribute 65,000 caste certificates to improve government schemes and benefit programs. According to Shubham Gupta, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, the Indian government was looking for ways to adopt emerging technologies to boost service efficiency.
“Web3 takes the concept of democratization to a whole new level, whereby data/information can not only be made openly sharable but can be made openly unfalsifiable,” he said.
