 In presenting to you these amazing conversations that we have for talking about amazing conversations. I'm absolutely excited about the next conversation being an early cryptocurrency investor and of course and blockchain enthusiast. This is an honor and a privilege to invite the next person up the young entrepreneur who on a trip to Japan witness the upcoming rise of cryptocurrency and return to India to start a cryptocurrency exchange. Ladies and gentlemen, it's an honor to invite the keynote speaker Mr. Sumit Gupta, CEO and founder of CoinDCX. We'll be talking about CoinDCX making crypto accessible to Indians. Sumit, thank you so much for joining in. We really appreciate your time. I'll hand over the screen to you. Thank you so much, Ravind for the warm introduction. Good afternoon to all. Yeah, I mean, when I was told to speak about in this today's session, I think the topic was primarily like how CoinDCX was born, some background about my journey so far, and why CoinDCX is a brand really matters to the customers and all of the stakeholders, right? So I earlier thought of giving a presentation to take you through the journey that I've gone through, but then I thought of speaking my mind out and, you know, there's a famous saying called products are made in the factory but brands are created in the mind. So I just thought of taking you through that journey through, you know, through what my experiences have been in crypto. And when it comes to brand, I think now the importance of brands has shifted from just mere existence to how the brands can stay relevant in the today's hyper competitive environment. We would have seen a lot of companies, new age companies coming up and growing really fast. So brands also need to emerge really fast. They also have to follow the trends and, you know, stay relevant. And I think that is very, very important in today's times. I was listening to the last chat and a couple of other things apart from being relevant was looking at the numbers and also give a good customer experience because that ultimately I am totally aligned with that. Talking about my journey. So, you know, I had a very, very, a lot of people don't know this, but I was born and brought up in a small village near Shupri, Shupri is a town in Madhya Pradesh. So roughly 1500 families lives there even today. So I was born and brought up there. Very, very, you know, my very, very simple background. But then one thing that I always felt and I always get goosebumps when I think about it is, you know, what are, you know, how can we do things bigger in life so I didn't know about that in my early days but whenever I used to study I always love challenges if a teacher gives us something and I always was open to it. So I think that is something that has been always on the top of my mind and the plan was always to accept challenges whatever comes along the way and then do something big. So even with CoinDasis the plan has always been to build something for the India, something which is new, which will give a lot of value to the customers. For example, in case of CoinDasis it is how can we give financial independence to our users right because, you know, a lot of financial education is still there's a big gap there. So we started and then, you know, to solve those challenges how can we use crypto to give financial independence to our customers and yeah so that has always been the dream that how can we build something for India and take it to a global stage. Then, you know, after my school education which happened in Shupri, I joined IIT Bombay and met Neeraj who is my co-founder and CTO of CoinDCX. So we are again friends from almost like 13, 14 years now. I've learned a lot from Neeraj as well as I think my biggest learning happened during my IIT days those four, five years of my life. They were the fundamental years of my life. They shaped me and primary reason being the kind of challenges that I've seen during those days. A lot of uncertainty, a lot of ambiguity and then how you pass that, how you cross that I think is what also helps you evolve as a person. After one of the foundational years of my life, I would say, then I set on to work in an international company, SUNY, so I worked there for a little more than a year, had that international exposure, spoken to a lot of people in Japan, learned a lot from their culture, returned back to India, did one venture, failed, didn't work, didn't took off, learned a lot. I think that is also very important. Failure on them realize the importance and you don't appreciate the fruits of success. So I made a lot of mistakes in that journey. Primary things mean that it was the first time that I'm doing a startup and a lot of the things. When you set out to do your business doesn't really work the way you think it should work. So you have to understand how things work. From a business perspective, you also need to learn to delegate, you need to learn how to hire the best minds out there, how to build the best teams, all of those learnings I had. So the first experience, the first startup experience that failure, taught me some very crucial lessons and then coincidences happened. And in coincidences I think I'd like to cover that in three parts just to keep things precise. One is what it means to be a player, a major player or a pioneer in the new category in India, which is crypto. A lot of people talk about it, but then what it means to run a brand in crypto in India. The second would be the challenges that the industry is facing, right, and how coincidences has overcome those challenges. And the third is how do we create a brand in such a new space? How do we make sure that people relate to our brand? How do we stay relevant? So I'll cover the rest of the conversation into three parts. So first being the category, right? So we all know, and for us I think it was very clear that we would want to be a part of a space, which is something different, right? Because that is where you are going to have big returns and you're going to basically have a larger impact and do something which is not very common, right? So for us it was very evident that I think crypto is something that I personally believed in from a long time. I co-founded Neeraj and almost everyone in the team right now. We all believe in the concept of decentralized internet or decentralized finance and how blockchain can help us achieve that, the importance of crypto. So we all know that in India, internet is having a deeper penetration. You know, 45 million developers, if they set out to build something in the field of internet, you can see how big India is, right? They set out to build something on blockchain, how powerful India can become on a global stage. So with that, I think we realize that India has a very high potential and not just in terms of software, but also in terms of financial. Always been a country which is doing a lot of innovations in terms of fintech and crypto has a lot to offer in terms of fintech space. That was very clear to us. So how can we build India as the base to lead global blockchain and crypto revolution is something that we always wanted to see. That was our aspiration. So we thought of starting from the basics and started solving the problems that we first had initially solved. Because if you can't skip steps in between, so we started solving the problems that we initially felt like how can you make investing into crypto simpler. And then we faced that, okay, we are interested, we have invested, how do we learn more about it than solving problems on crypto education, then we started D6 Learn, which helps any Indian learn about crypto free of cost and right from the basics in very simple words. We started solving, essentially we started solving problems that we faced and people in our network and their network faced. I think that is what we kept on solving and the brand continued to evolve. When you are creating space, when you are in a space which is sort of new, you tend to face multiple challenges, not just in terms of tech product but also in terms of legal regulatory compliance, hiring, tons of it, policy. So those are very day to day problems that you will come across. So I think that was a good experience overall. Then not just these challenges but there were very different problems as well in terms of, and that happens with any new technology, how do you address regulatory issues, how do you make sure that you provide the right sort of information to your customers because your customers are also not aware of what Bitcoin is, what blockchain is, what crypto is, how your job as a company as a brand is not just to sell your services but also to make sure that your customers, your end users are understanding it, right, are also getting educated in the process because if you, it's not just about business, right, all the time, you also need to, you also are set out for a mission, right, how do you make sure that crypto gets into India, how do you make sure that India doesn't leave behind when it comes to this technology. So that is also a larger part of our vision. So we started working on solving those challenges, not just within the community but also with several industry bodies with regulators started explaining sharing ideas, sharing thoughts on how can we make sure that the right market goes out. We have also fought a case in Supreme Court and it was a historic judgment where in 2018 we came with a circular and then in 2020 Supreme Court passed a judgment where they made crypto a very open thing and people could buy, sell trade crypto openly. So those were some of the impacts that if you as a brand get involved in, I think that they are going to have a long lasting impact and not which is far higher than just selling your services. So I think that is something that any brand should also get involved in, especially very, very relevant when you are in an industry which is new, a category which is new, which is in the inception phase. I think it's very important that as a company, as one of the early players in the space, you also shape up the industry in the right way so that your future companies or anyone who is, who wants to be part of this space also gets that advantage, as a player, I think CoinD6 has contributed a lot in that direction and we will continue to contribute in terms of shaping the ecosystem in the country, but I think as a brand that is also very, very important other than the, you know, other than product, other than your numbers and staying relevant, I think you need to give back to the industry to the community in order to come out as a very strong brand as a thought leader. So we have done that to a lot extent. I think there's a lot of work we are yet to give up talking about awareness and adoption. I think crypto is a space where a lot of people are curious about it. How do you make sure that you pass on the right knowledge and right communication to your customers. So we have tried to do that via various campaigns that we do on social channels. You go to Instagram. There's a campaign, very interesting campaign that we launched which went sort of viral called Bitcoin Leakya. The thought process behind that was, and it is very relevant to all the brand marketers out there, right? One thing that we knew that there are very small fraction, less than 1% of the people in India are into crypto. How can, if you want to take this to 10% what all things we need to do, right? So I think the way it works is, and it's like customer psychology, right? People are on the fence. They want to know more about what Bitcoin is, how do I purchase my first Bitcoin? Why do I even need to invest into Bitcoin? How do I use Bitcoin or crypto for my portfolio diversification? So those were some very basic questions that a lot of people who wanted to invest, who are generally investors, they had these questions. So how do we solve that problem? Now as a brand, either you can solve that directly or you basically create ambassadors, right? Which will be your users. So there are already, let's say, you know, 2 million people who have purchased crypto, how do you leverage those 2 million people to solve the questions or to answer the questions that other 10 million people would have, right? So you need to first educate these 2 million people. And then we have done, we are already doing efforts and we have done a lot of efforts to make sure and these people already have some basic idea. But then the learning sphere, right? So how do you use this network? And then the thought process came was, how do we get these people, invite people who are on the fence who want to invest, but they are dicey, they don't know how to invest in it, right? So then the question, the concept came like, you know, Bitcoin Leakya, where you tell people on why they should invest, you share knowledge, you raise awareness, and then step by step, you also focus on adoption, crypto adoption. And I think as a brand, our mission is how do we get 15 million Indians into crypto? The industry has done that to some extent, but I think there's a lot more work to do. Regulation is also going to be a part of that. So how do we get 50 million Indians into crypto? I think we need to educate people. We also need to use the existing community to get people who are confused about it or who have questions. So in order to achieve the bigger goal, we have done various educational series seminars, webinars, plus some funny campaigns, something that people would want to talk about Bitcoin Leakya is one such viral campaign that people spoke about. And we have been acquiring millions of customers with just one campaign alone. Apart from that PCX Learn, which is our free portal that is also a good learning source, and we have this funnel built in where any customer who gets excited about Bitcoin, they get the right knowledge and they start with a bare minimum investment. We don't want customers to put in big amounts at the go. We want them to start very small, right? And then experience it themselves. So they should try crypto first and then when they are trying in the process, they will also start learning along the way that has the thought process behind it. So anyone who was interested to know more about Bitcoin crypto in the first place, we get them a small test balance of 100 rupees and then they can play around in the app with that. While they are doing that, they can purchase 10 rupees worth of Ethereum. When they have something in their portfolio, they would naturally read more about it. So we have seen people reading more about what Ethereum does, what the smart contract is. So these are some of the baby steps we have taken and you just need to get people excited about the technology, tell them about what it does and then the rest of the work themselves will do if they have the motivation. So having that trigger, making sure that they understand why it is important for them to be aware about what is happening globally. It's already very popular outside India but how do we make sure that India should also investment is one side but how they should also know about the whole technology, what is blockchain, what is crypto, how it can help in achieving financial independence, how crypto can help and defy, right? All of the things are something which we want Indians to know about and it is a gradual process. So we are in the process of how we can make crypto mainstream, how we can make crypto a common word or how we can direct crypto adoption in the country. So I'm very excited, I think about what the future holds for all the crypto entrepreneurs and the crypto enthusiasts in the country. Very excited about the possibilities and the future and there are a lot of uncertainties in this space, there is no regulation. I understand and but as people say, when nothing is short, everything is possible. So I would like to reiterate that there is a lot of possibilities in the world of crypto and we as a brand want to stay relevant and in order to stay relevant it is beyond product, it is beyond what you give service to the customers. It is beyond the numbers, it is a feeling, it is an emotion that you pass on to the customers and then that is what drives the maximum impact and then if you build a brand, I think that is going to be far more than the business alone. I think that that would be my takeaway. That's all from my side. Thank you. Thank you, Sumit. I have no more time in to dive into a conversation with you. So no one is the co-founder exchange for media group. I would be very happy to invite no one now on this diet so that Thank you. Thank you, Robin. Thank you. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Sumit. Very candid, insightful, and glad to hear about your background for some of the viewers who are watching today, who might not know, Shiv Puri also happens to be the home constituency of the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh who has been in the saddle for close to 18 years, Sri Shiv Raj Johan. So very happy to know that you belong to Shiv Puri. I also have lots of friends who are alma mater of IIT Bombay. So a lot of common connections. I was very, very fascinating for you to talk about cryptocurrency and I was looking at how you've been a serial founder before cryptocurrency, you founded a secondhand exchange for electronic goods, and you've been doing a lot of work in the tech domain. Since today's chat is about cryptocurrency, I want to know from you. It's a very complex area for a layperson to understand. If you look at the rise of the Indian stock market, how it used to be 50 years back versus how it is now, I think Harshad Mehta was a guy who really brought it to the common man in a very notorious way. Everybody got to know about what BSE is after the scams that happened in the early 90s. Crypto has come up recently and it's a very complex maze, so to say. Let me start by asking you what are the two, three easy ways, if there are any, to demystify cryptocurrency for a layperson whom you're looking at as an investor. Sure. If you ask me about three things, I think first thing that people should do is start getting exposure to the space, right? The reason why we give people 100 rupees a worth of Bitcoin is not just for customer acquisition, but I think when people have something in their wallet, they will naturally have some more inclination. They have vested interest to read more about it. So I think even if they start with even 100 rupees, 200 rupees, that is fine. But having exposure, starting with a small amount of investment, I think that is one important step. The second step, once you have done that is to link it with the real world. If you have invested into Bitcoin, if it is going 5% up, you also need to understand why it is happening. Generally, a lot of people say, okay, these Bitcoin Ethereum does not have any link with the real world events. Just like in stock market, people say, if HDSC share is going up, they will know that why it is going up because the quarterly results are profitable. But in crypto market, you can actually very well see that. It is all there in the blockchain. The only difference is in crypto, there are not enough companies. It is difficult to consume that information because it is not out there in simple words. People know about CS note about financial statements. But in crypto, it is all there in the blockchain. You can go to websites which will give you all of this data. Ethereum platform is like a company which also makes money. And that money goes to just like when a company gives dividends to shareholders, when Ethereum platform gets more popularity, all of the people who hold Ethereum, they get incentivized. So there are dynamics. They are also just that because the interfaces are not very simple and the space is new, it is difficult to find out. So to summarize, get invested into the space, start with a very small amount, start reading about it, link it with what is happening in the real world. I also understand the technology bit in this. One of the simplest ways to start reading about crypto is a platform that we have built called D6 Learn. The intent to launch that is simply anyone who is new, who has no idea right from the ABCD of crypto, how can they start their crypto journey. They can just go to D6 Learn and start reading about it. So that is the second thing. And the third thing is talk to more people just like you and I are having this conversation. If they talk to more people who are already into crypto, I think the learning are going to be immense. So if they just take a few things, they are going to start their crypto journey and once they get deeper into that, I think they will get excited and the rest of the journey is easier part. You just need to put the pedal. I think that is the most complex part. Tell us a bit about the larger environment you operate in. From what I gather, there are almost 4000 cryptocurrencies and there are many exchanges that are operating. So if I was a lay person looking to invest in cryptocurrency, how do I absorb this information? It is all right. Of course, knowledge gathering is the starting point for everything. But the width of what is already happening in cryptocurrency is so much. Give us a view of the ecosystem that companies like Coin, DCX are operating in. If you can describe the value chain, so to say to us for a lay person to understand easily. Sure. So I think crypto is a largely unregulated space. No guidelines from the government and it is like Internet age 20 years ago. People did not know how to build websites right now. Any developer or any engineer in a matter of few days, they can start building their websites and they can start their business also. Internet based business. I think we are in the same phase where we are in the infrastructure phase of this technology. Right now, if you see globally, the infrastructure is being built up. In future, you will start seeing applications, decentralized applications being built on top of blockchain just like how we use websites. We use Chrome browser and in Chrome browser, you have multiple websites. You open facebook.com, xyz.com. Similarly, you will have decentralized apps called DApps running on top of blockchain. I think we will see a lot of that. A lot of that is not out there, which we are using on a daily life. That is the part of adoption. I think we will see that in the coming three to five years. Regulation is going to be a critical role there. But I think you have, if you read about it, you will already start seeing some of the use cases which are very popular, which are already being used by millions of people out there. It might not be that popular in India. But depending upon the country's take, depending upon how mature the ecosystem is, there are companies who are building real world solving real world problems out there. So I think we are in the phase, I think in the next one or two years when governments will start regulating it, we will start seeing an inflection point. And that is when you will suddenly see, suddenly start seeing like hundreds of companies coming every month globally in the field of crypto. And when there is a lot of companies, you will see competition, you will see competition, you will see innovation. And with innovation, you will see real world use cases coming in. And you will not realize what, for example, when we use internet, we don't know what TCPIP protocol is. We just enter a website and then we see the website. Similarly, you will use services, you will use blockchain. You might not realize that how is it working in the background, but you'll start consuming that. I think that is the direction broadly if you see. One of the challenges here is the regulation part, but I think that will take its own time, technology moves faster than regulations generally. But I think what we as a community, as a company, as a brand can do is to make sure that we are providing the right set of education to the community as well as to the regulators. And that is where the overall growth of the ecosystem will happen. Yes, I know that recently the Association of the Cryptocurrency has also asked the government to kind of park this entire issue with the RBI. Instead of Sebi being the overruling body, we will not get into that. Simran has already messaged me that we are on a tight time schedule. What I want to talk to you, Sumit, moving forward is about how do you build brand in such a new and sort of nascent area where the first important objective is to draw in customers without scaring them or by giving the assurance that this is not sort of gambling but you are really, this is investment like you do in stock markets. There is a fundamental value to the product they are buying into and the exchange is basically offering you various shares like the exchanges do. So tell us a bit about your communication strategy. What is your approach in terms of what kind of media are you looking to use? What is the focus of that strategy? We've already seen that you've done a very popular campaign called Bitcoin Lia Kya and you also use various platforms across TV, social media, search, content, marketing. So what's going to be your focus area over the next 12-8 months when it comes to communication? So when it comes to building a brand in a new space like crypto, I think two things are very important. You have to look beyond your personal like benefits like your business, what you are essentially doing is you are creating a category. I think I can say the word that crypto is a new category which is currently in the formation phase in the country. So you have to grow the category. When it comes to growing the category, you need to solve multiple problems because when you're running a business in e-commerce, you just need to reach out to customers and acquire customers and the industry is set there already. But when it comes to something like crypto, you have to do both the things. You have to acquire customers as well as you have to create the category. You have to build the category. You have to grow the pie and it might result in a lot of people coming in, a lot of people going to competitors, but you should be okay with that. You're not just solving for your business, you're solving for the country, you're solving for that category. So I think that is one call that we have taken that we will do whatever it takes to make sure that the crypto, at least the right knowledge goes out. A lot of people still feel today that crypto is illegal in India, which is not true. So we need to pass on that message. We need to spread the right education awareness in the country. So that is very clear. How do we grow the category? And then when you're growing the category, how do you, what value are providing? So I think being transparent is very, very important. You remain as a very transparent brand, you do what customers want because you don't need to solve too many problems. Customers don't want too many products. They just want simple thing that, okay, how do I buy Bitcoin in the simple and safest way possible? Because there are a lot of questions around this. People don't know where do I store my Bitcoin? They would want to work with a company who gives them assurance that, okay, this is a safe company. So we have tied up with BitGo, which is an insurance provider. So that gives people assurance, right? People didn't know that I can buy Bitcoin with 100 rupees also. They felt that, okay, I can only buy one Bitcoin just like how I buy shares. Then we had to solve that problem also. So it's a journey. There is not one thing that you need to do. You have to solve multiple problems along the way. And one of the best ways to do that is being very close to the customer. I still talk to a lot of customers on a daily basis. I still talk to like 20-30 customers who have, I think you get a sense of what the flavor is in the market and then you start solving those problems one by one. In terms of building a brand, I think you just need to stick to your fundamental values of the brand which is trust, simplicity, safety. You stick onto that and you just go the category, you will naturally get that one. I think the formula is pretty straightforward. And especially in a field like crypto, you just need to work very closely with your customers. And when it comes to campaign, when you talked about Bitcoin, the campaign was very simple. You want people, let's say people to diversify their portfolio. Now, better way, the best way of learning is by peers. If my friend tells me something, he will explain it in my own words. So rather than the brand telling it, we wanted people who are already invested into crypto to tell their friends that, okay, look, this is what they should do. And how do we educate the people? We call nodes, right? How do we educate 1 million people who are already into crypto to get to other million people on board? I think the important thing is you need to give education. You need to give right education. Without that, it is not a healthy environment. So once you have the right sort of education coming in, the ecosystem will flourish. That's right. And we see that Cricket has been one of the sort of key properties you've been associated with. Obviously, it gives mass reach. It also makes it has a lot of huge potential already. Yes. It also gives an assurance that, okay, it's not something which is totally new or something that should be secured off. It comes in the mainstream media so people get more confidence. Yes. I see Ravind has already, you know, buzzed the timer. So thank you, Sumit, for joining us. For those of you who are listening, there's a new story report of yesterday that CoinDCX might be in talks with investors who raise more money and they might be the first unicorn in this space in India. So, you know, our best wishes to you, Sumit, I hope it happens. I know you are not going to comment on that, but our best wishes for your successful journey and fantastic work done in such a short period of time. It is entrepreneurs like you who are going to build the next wave of businesses in India and hopefully a lot of customers will benefit. Thank you for talking to us. Thanks for your time. Back to you, Ravind. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you, Navalan. Thank you, Sumit. I'm terribly sorry we didn't have much time, but we would be very happy to have you back here and continue this conversation. Thank you, Sumit, once again for your valuable time. Thank you.