Crypto continues to lose its sheen

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After a dismal 2022, this year also does not seem to be favoring cryptocurrencies. It did gain brief attention post India calling for international collaboration around developing a regulatory framework for cryptos during its recently concluded G-20 presidency. However, per a report by job platform Indeed, posting for jobs related to crypto dipped by 64.2% between August 2022 and 2023.

Even those searching for a job in this space slipped by 15.2% during this period. About 36.4% of all crypto-related jobs originated from Bangalore, India’s very own Silicon Valley. Pune (7.32%), Mumbai (6.68%) and Gurgaon (6.54%) followed closely. 

In terms of job profile, application developers (10.86%) were the most sought after, followed by enterprise architects (5.97%), full stack developers (5.38%) and data engineers (2.92%)

Never-ending woes Yesterday, after the Fed decided to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged between 5.25-5.5%, bitcoin fell 0.6% over the last 24 hours to trade at $26,612.21 today. Even Ethereum dipped 0.7% since yesterday to trade at $1,594.02 today. 

India’s hostile stance towards crypto has already forced many companies to give their expansion and hiring plans a cold shoulder. It has also propelled companies like CoinSwitch Kuber to pivot to wider pastures of wealth management. Last month, the exchange laid off 44 employees, or 8% of its total employee base, citing redundancy issues. 

India’s crypto ecosystem is reeling under the 30% tax levied by the government on all gains earned from virtual digital assets, or VDAs like cryptocurrency. Additionally, 1% TDS is levied on every crypto transaction exceeding Rs 10,000, which leaves users and exchanges grappling with severe liquidity issues. This translated into steep falls of about 85-95% in the trading volume for most exchanges within a short span. According to industry experts, the government is likely to not amend these rules in the near future. 

However, cases of frauds via cryptocurrencies are also catching momentum. Recently, a Mumbai-based individual lost Rs 85 lakh to a fake crypto scam. In Odisha, the police recently busted a Rs 1,000 crore crypto Ponzi scheme operating under the name of Solar Techno Alliance. So pressing is the need that India is developing a crypto intelligence and analysis tool (CAIT) to monitor crypto wallet addresses on the darknet.