‘Within 2 years, India will have the largest pool of web3 developers in the world’

• India’s first crypto unicorn CoinDCX is organizing Unfold 2022, a web 3 event hosting developers, crypto enthusiasts and venture capitalists in the field.
  
• The crypto exchange CoinDCX has over 13 million users in India.
  
• Bounties worth $50,000 are up for grabs at the event for Indian web 3 developers.
  
• The web 3 event announced the launch of a new DeFi app called Okto, allowing access to 100+ decentralized apps.
  

With over 13 million users in India, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the country, CoinDCX kickstarted its three-day Web3 event Unfold 2022 today in India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru. The crypto exchange became India’s first crypto unicorn in August 2021.

CoinDCX also announced its waitlist campaign for a first-of-its-kind, easy to access mobile app called the Okto on Friday. Okto is inspired from Octopus which is an inherently intelligent creature. What the crypto exchange is offering is a keyless self-custodial wallet backed by multiple layers of security that allows native access to 100+ decentralized apps.

Indian users will be able to access the Okto wallet with CoinDCX Pro app to securely navigate opportunities in DeFi and globally it will be launched as a standalone Okto app. With this app users can access thousands of tokens from multiple DEXs across chains in your mobile and discover high yield generating opportunities.

CoinDCX launched CoinDCX Ventures in May 2022, a project to help build and mentor the Web3 startups in India. Unfold 2022 will host crypto enthusiasts, developers and web 3 venture capitalists under one umbrella.

Web 3 is a new iteration of the world wide web, which aims to make ownership of data less centralized. This is done using decentralization and blockchain-based technologies.

CoinDCX’s web 3 event Unfold 2022 will begin from August 26th to August 28th and put under limelight the crypto community of India. Bounties worth over $50,000 are up for grabs for Indian web 3 developers at the day of the hackathon being held at the event.

India has also implemented new tax rules to regulate the cryptocurrency industry from July 1, which asks for 1% TDS to be deducted on transfer of crypto and other virtual assets. There has been considerable discussion in the crypto community on how best to support web 3 innovation in India.

This conversation comes against the backdrop of the upcoming event, as Business Insider talks to Rohit Jain, Managing Director of CoinDCX Ventures.

How large is India’s web3 ecosystem and how’s it poised to grow? How can your event Unfold 2022, help bring synergy into the web3.0 community in India?

India today has the second largest crypto user base in the world. We believe that with increasing regulatory certainty, India will probably have the largest pool of web3 developers in the world in the next two years.

When Web2 was developing, it was a different story as the digital economy was not strong. That story will change with Web3 developers. India will see more unicorns coming out of the Web3 space as compared to the Web2 space.

Unfold 2022 will help grow the web3 community in India with the theme for the conference being “innovation” and answer the question- How will Indian web3 space look like 12-24 months from now?

There are three components to this event- hosting India’s largest web3 conference on August 26. The second day is demo day. As many as 20-25 Web3 venture capitalists are coming forth to invest in Web3 projects in India. A three-day hackathon, which is India’s largest multi-chain hackathon, will have a large number of teams participating in it.

Will VC funding affect the decentralized nature of the crypto industry?

We have invited some of the most active Web3 investors in the space to Unfold 2022. Innovation requires money and venture capital funding does not change the core of the crypto industry.

There are certain terms and conditions the VCs have to agree upon before investing in a project. The decentralized nature of a token, post its launch, will remain the same. The rights of the VCs will differ in decentralized projects.

What are the most promising Web3 projects that are being built in India?

There are numerous web3 projects that we are excited about. CoinDCX has recently invested in some of these projects. One is EPNS, a web3 notification layer service. Another one, Liminal, is building a Web3 custody solution.

Router and Cinder are some other promising companies we have invested in. When a multichain environment exists, you need a sound infrastructure to form a bridge across chains. That is the pain point these companies are trying to resolve.

What’s next on CoinDCX’s expansion agenda? Which pockets are you seeing value in?

We want to grow the web3 space in India and the team is working on multiple initiatives based on customer feedback. Real-world use cases of DeFi are quite challenging and naturally this means the number of DeFi users globally is quite small.

How do you onboard the next billion DeFi users globally? Web2 has moved towards a single click experience while DeFi is still a 10 clicks experience. We want to launch a user interface service which contributes to making the use of DeFi a one-click seamless experience.

CoinDCX Ventures, an arm that helps fund web3 startups in India was launched in May 2022. Given the regulatory uncertainty right now, how do you see this space evolving for web3 startups in India?

The regulatory environment globally is moving in lockstep. Global regulators are trying to figure out how to regulate the crypto ecosystem. When laws were drafted, they weren’t done keeping the nature of decentralized business in mind. The regulator is not against innovation but it will take patience and understanding to redraft the set laws.

Governments are trying to protect the users while simultaneously trying to understand the crypto space. The secular trend is upwards and this is a global phenomenon. As long as you are helping improve a customer’s life, in the long term, web3 space in India will be fine.

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