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Cryptocurrency Market Update: Bitcoin and Ethereum Lead as Robust Assets; Stablecoin Transactions Surpass Major Credit Card Networks. India’s Regulatory Path Ahead.
Cryptocurrencies
By Sumit Gupta, Co-Founder of CoinDCX: Cryptocurrency, though sometimes misunderstood, signifies dual innovations. It embodies both a novel asset class, prominently featuring Bitcoin and Ethereum, and an advanced digital framework for value management. Combining these two under one concept leads to regulatory and strategic challenges, especially in growing economies like India.
Crypto Assets: Beyond Market Speculation
Despite the notion that crypto is primarily speculative, assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum have progressively become resilient assets over the past ten years. Bitcoin’s inception following the 2008 recession proved the possibility of a digitally finite asset operating without central control. Between 2011 and 2021, Bitcoin displayed a compound annual growth rate exceeding 200%, greatly surpassing traditional asset performance. Even with recent market adjustments, its long-term CAGR remains above 80%[1], making it a sound choice in times of economic instability and currency devaluation. Recognizing this, hedge funds and governmental bodies are considering Bitcoin as protection against conventional market risks. Companies listed in London are now holding Bitcoin as part of their financial reserves, and entities in the US and EU are introducing spot Bitcoin ETFs. The asset has moved beyond a niche interest and is becoming a mainstream portfolio element.
Crypto Infrastructure: The Emerging Digital Financial System
Focusing solely on price omits the broader significance. Crypto functions not only as an asset but also as a native digital network for value transfer. It represents an emerging standard for value exchange, similar to how PDFs transformed document sharing and MP3s revolutionized music. This shift is based on tokens, digital representations of assets within a programmable, unrestricted system. Stablecoins exemplify this, acting as tokenized dollars redeemable at a 1:1 ratio, facilitating global, immediate, and affordable transactions. Currently, stablecoins support over $240 billion in monthly on-chain transactions, utilized for international payments and savings. Stablecoin transaction volumes reached $5.7 trillion in 2024, and 2025 is expected to significantly exceed this, with about $4.6 trillion processed across one billion transactions in the first half of the year alone. Remarkably, these figures are now beyond the combined annual processing volumes of Visa and Mastercard. This advancement has been gradual. Moving from Bitcoin, the sector has developed infrastructure with Ethereum in 2015, offering self-executing smart contracts that enabled decentralized apps. The ERC-20 standard facilitated the creation and trading of numerous tokens. Decentralized exchanges, lending platforms, and NFTs followed. We are currently observing a tiered ecosystem of blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon, each tailored to optimize for speed, cost, or composability. Similar to the early internet phases, there is competition, experimentation, and decentralization. Gradually, a select number of strong public frameworks will merge, driving the next iteration of finance and governance.
India’s Crypto Approach: Focusing on Implementation
The future of cryptocurrency in India requires a strategic approach. How can we build a regulatory environment that is responsible, risk-aware, and fosters innovation? We possess the talent and the platforms. Clarification is what we require now, along with experimental spaces and the acknowledgement of crypto as a fundamental part of our digital infrastructure. For policymakers, this strategy could form the basis for programmable rupee-based stablecoins to provide clarity in subsidy delivery, reduce remittance costs, and enable instant trade settlements.
Cryptocurrency is an upgrade to the existing financial system. The key is to decide whether we want to be part of its growth or be playing catch-up in the coming years with other forward thinking countries. In other words, if India doesn’t establish the rules for the forthcoming financial age, others will. Consequently, we’ll be left to work with their rules.
By Sumit Gupta, Co-Founder of CoinDCX
The views expressed herein are those of the author and may not reflect the views of this publication.
Varun Yadav is a Sub Editor at News18 Business Digital. He writes articles on markets, personal finance, technology, and more. He completed his post-graduation diploma in English Journalism from the Indian Inst…Read More
Varun Yadav is a Sub Editor at News18 Business Digital. He writes articles on markets, personal finance, technology, and more. He completed his post-graduation diploma in English Journalism from the Indian Inst… Read More
September 14, 2025, 12:14 PM (India Standard Time)
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