Cryptocurrencies have slid in the past few months. Globally the price of bitcoin has fallen from $67,000 in November 2021 to $40,700 in April 2022 — a fall of 40 percent in six months. In India, the crypto trade has been dealt a massive blow because of higher taxation and volumes have dropped significantly. In fact Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has cautioned against money laundering and terror financing using crypto assets recently. What does one do now? Nikhil Kamath, Co-Founder of Zerodha, Siddharth Menon, Co-Founder, Wazirx, and Shashank Udupa, Co-Founder and COO, Avalon Meta, discussed this further.
“In short span of time, we saw the prices going up and what we are seeing right now is a cooling-off phase which is a very typical market thing,” said Menon. “It is still quite fair where we are,” he added.
Also Read: There has been 30-40% dip in India crypto volumes in past 30 days over tax uncertainties: WazirX
“Bitcoin does these weird rallies once in a while, it did it in 2016-2017 where it went from $2,000 to $20,000 — a 10x jump — and now in the recent past it took a 6x-7x jump,” said Udupa.
He believes bitcoin currently is in a consolidation phase, which is very common. “There is a phase of a bull run and everything is looking rosy and nice and then there is some negative news that makes it look bad. But eventually it bounces back,” he added.
According to Kamath, the future alternative to the dollar and whether that alternative is required are the two tough questions to answer.
For the entire discussion, watch the accompanying video.
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