India is currently on the verge of criminalizing the ownership of cryptocurrencies, and as investors work their way up to exiting the market, the crypto-ecosystem awaits the final turn out of events.
With the implementation of the ban comes the potential shutdown of crypto-related businesses, this is why Coinbase’s plans to expand its services across India has birthed a lot of questions from onlookers. Is Coinbase bold or there is information the public knows nothing about?
Coinbase looks to expand in India
The leading cryptocurrency exchange revealed that it was expanding its business to India, and was looking to hire residents of the country. This is coming after the recent establishment of a branch in Canada. The company’s goal is to hire tech, engineering, and customer support talent to broaden innovation in the country.
“By housing some IT services, including engineering, software development, and customer support operations in India, we will benefit from its huge pool of world-class engineering talent. India has long been known as a hub for engineering and technology innovation.” Coinbase explained, in a blog post.
Is India going back on its warnings?
Coinbase hiring new employees in India is suggestive of the possibility of the country’s government reconsidering its anti-crypto laws, expected to be implemented later this year. Observers are speculating that the company, which is known for helping some of the biggest tech companies initiate their Bitcoin purchases, may have some positive information about the state of things in the country that the general public is not aware of.
This aligns with the statement from India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who explained that there is still room for experimenting with digital currencies like Bitcoin, in order to fully understand its upsides and downsides.
However, if the ban is implemented and the company intends to bypass these laws, that might be possible as it intends to prioritize remote work over opening a physical company, although the latter will still be established in the future.
As was explained in the blogpost:
“As we announced earlier this year, Coinbase is committed to being a remote-first company, which means that new hires in India, Canada and elsewhere will have the option to work across various locations in their country of hire. We expect to open a physical office, initially in Hyderabad, for Indian employees as COVID-related conditions allow.”
There’s also a possibility that Coinbase’s business may clash with the country’s laws when fully implemented. The said laws make it illegal to buy, sell, invest and even to send and receive digital currencies. As such, cryptocurrency companies like Coinbase migrating to India leaves a lot of questions about the company’s ability to remain unaffected by these laws while carrying out business unanswered.
