For India’s millions of cricket fans, matches this year have been punctuated by adverts for cryptocurrency. The ads, featuring Bollywood stars and offering free bitcoins, largely glossed over the risks and legal ambiguities of trading the digital coins.
“At the Cricket World Cup, at least 70 per cent of the advertisements coming on television were something to do with crypto,” said Uday Singh Ahlawat, a corporate lawyer based in New Delhi. “Because crypto is a grey area, people were trying to take advantage.”
But as millions rushed to buy coins such as bitcoin and ethereum, “alarm bells started ringing” in New Delhi, said Ahlawat. Now CoinSwitch Kuber and other exchanges are braced for a regulatory backlash, as India’s government debates following China by banning cryptocurrencies.