A Bitcoin (virtual currency) coin is seen in an illustration picture taken at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, France, June 23, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/Illustration - RTS18BQW
The cryptocurrency space in India is likely to soon light up as major players enter the market and plan to offer trade in many other cryptocurrencies apart from bitcoin.
Poland-based cryptocurrency exchange, BitBay will soon launch its services in India and enable users to buy and sell 6 altcoins (alternative cryptocurrencies to bitcoin).
A few exchanges like Zebpay, Unocoin, and Coinsecure have been there for a while, providing a platform for trading bitcoin but have not yet introduced various altcoins like ethereum, ripple, dash etc. on their platforms.
Riding on the back of bitcoin's popularity, altcoins have rallied exponentially since the start of the year. The market cap of altcoins has shot from USD 2 billion to USD 77 billion since the beginning of the year.
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With the entry of BitBay, users will have access to some of the most popular altcoins like litecoin, ether, monero and dash which have rallied over 1,050 percent, 3,825 percent, 620 percent, and 2,216 percent year-to-date respectively, as per Coinmarketcap.
Speaking to Moneycontrol, Rohit Dahda - India Head, BitBay, listed the company's plans in India and shared details about the platform.
Q. What opportunities and challenges do you see in India?
BitBay India has been conceptualized to provide innovative services, support, and solution for cryptocurrency users in terms of fast and secure transactions.
Our main goal is to remove all misconceptions related to cryptocurrency, drive more people towards digital currencies, attract potential investors from the market and offer all round platform to trade as well as exchange multiple cryptocurrencies at BitBay.
Another important challenge is getting involved in a discussion around the legal future of Bitcoin and other digital currencies in India.
Q. Which cryptocurrencies will be available for trade with the rupee from the first day itself and will inter-crypto trade be available since day 1?
BitBay will allow trade and exchange of Bitcoin, Ether, Gamecredits, Litecoin, Monero, Dash and Lisk. That is total 7 cryptocurrency right now. Also, more cryptocurrencies (around 17) will be available within the next few months. We are looking forward to our customers' opinions, which currencies should be added.
Q. Does BitBay have a hybrid model where the user and exchange both will have access to the private keys or is it centralized?
BitBay does not provide users with access to private keys. We keep customers' cryptocurrency funds on "cold wallets” which is seen as a good practice among crypto trading platforms.
Q. How has the response been for BitBay in the UK and other countries? It’ll be great if you could share some revenue figures and trading volumes.
BitBay platform is the number one in Eastern-Central Europe with more than 200,000 users and with the 10th position worldwide. We are proud to be seen as a reliable and trustworthy platform, operating since 2014. BitBay’s domestic market is Poland with a 24-hour BTC/PLN market volume around USD 9 million.
Q. Will there be a trading fee over the platform? If so, how much will it be?
On 14th of August, we launched demo version. This is a great opportunity for everyone to try out cryptocurrencies trading on our platform. Next, on24th of August, we will present a live, full version. We will start with zero percent transaction fee.
Q. Exchanges have been prone to hacks. What measures have you taken to safeguard user data and money?
At Bitbay we are very focused on the safety of our user's funds. First of all, there are high-level security standards. Some of them are original solutions designed by BitBay’s IT specialists.
Powerful, dedicated servers and advanced encryption used to protect databases, wallets and backups work for the best security there can be.
All cryptocurrencies are kept on “cold wallets” to protect them from theft.
Each user can also use a handful of security tools to protect their account – for example, 2-factor authentication or e-mail confirmations.
Q. Apart from the initial 7 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, how many more altcoins do you plan to add in the coming days?
We are planning to provide users over 17 cryptocurrencies within next months. Also, we would like to mention that we will extend the offer of our platform with a PRO view and professional trading tools this year.
