- India has become one of the biggest crypto markets in the world, with one of the top exchanges revealing that Bitcoin is by far the most popular crypto in the country.
- Shiba Inu is the third-most-popular crypto in India after BTC and Tether, ahead of the world’s largest altcoin Ethereum and popular memecoin Dogecoin.
India, despite its regulatory uncertainty, has become one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency markets. A lot of the growth in the Indian crypto market came about in the past year as investors scrambled to diversify their portfolios amid the uncertainty that came with COVID-19. As data from one crypto exchange reveals, Bitcoin is by far the most popular crypto, with Tether and Shiba Inu following suit ahead of Ethereum.
WazirX is one of India’s largest and most popular crypto exchanges. Now owned by Binance, the exchange claims to now have over 9 million users and so far this year, it has seen over $30 billion in trading volume. It offers over 100 cryptocurrencies for trading.
Globally, Tether has remained the highest-traded crypto for several months now. In the past 24 hours, $53 billion worth of USDT was traded, more than twice the $24 billion worth of BTC and four times more than Ethereum. However, in India, BTC is still king.
Tether doesn’t rank too far behind and is the second-most popular crypto, although WazirX didn’t provide the specific figures. A surprise candidate on the list is third-placed Shiba Inu, which ranks ahead of Ethereum in fourth, despite being built on Ethereum.
While the astronomical price rise of SHIB is a big factor for most of its trading volume globally, India’s history with the token goes beyond the price. Back in May last year, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin transferred two trillion SHIB tokens worth $40 million at the time to COVID-19 relief efforts in the country. Shiba Inu developers had given Buterin the tokens as a way of showing the legitimacy of their project, thinking that he was quite unlikely to cash them out, sort of like burning them and removing them from the supply.
Upon cashing out the 2 trillion SHIB, the price of the token tanked by about 30 percent. Vitalik also made new enemies for his action, with some developers ganging up to introduce a token known as Rug Ethereum whose sole purpose was to dump ETH for Binance Coin (BNB).
Read More: Team of developers declare war on Ethereum after founder’s Shiba Inu dump
Ethereum comes in at fourth place in India, with WazirX token coming in fifth. Just like BNB for Binance and FTT for FTX exchange, WazirX coin serves as a utility token on the exchange, with users getting discounts on the fees if they trade with the token.
Dogecoin, TRON, Cardano and Polygon (whose founders are Indian) are also quite popular.
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