Top crypto exchange sees great potential in Kerala market and talented techies

Kochi: Kerala can emerge as a leader in the crypto ecosystem, the fast-growing new-age financial sector, a top player in the field said here on Tuesday.

Vikram Subburaj, who heads Giottus, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, said Kerala holds great potential in the crypto-space with its cerebral capabilities.

“With a huge pool of educated young men and women, Kerala has shown a high level of achievement in terms of employability and capacity building in the new and emerging financial sectors," Subburaj said. 

The CEO of Giottus was addressing media as part of the company's awareness campaign on the crypto economy.

(Crypto is the native currency of the digital space.)

“Kerala market per se is one of the growing markets in the crypto ecosystem. India itself is a very growing market and in that Kerala holds a pretty important market base for the crypto space because the particular technology needs people who can understand, read and imbibe technology. It's easily available but it can't be easily absorbed by people,” Subburaj said.

Highlighting how deeply the crypto market has already penetrated into Kerala, Subburaj said more than 35 per cent of Giottus' customers were from the Kerala market.

Origin, growth

Founded in 2017, Giottus has already made its way into the top-4 crypto exchanges in the country with a customer base of one million.

Subburaj said the company is planning to recruit skilled developers massively from Kerala as a huge pool of technologically qualified youth makes Kerala a potential hub for bleeding-edge technology like blockchain and crypto.

(Bleeding-edge technology is that released to the public without thorough testing and hence likely to be unreliable.)

Why crypto

Explaining the basics of the crypto world, Subburaj said, “There's a need to have a native form of a transaction medium in digital universe. In digital universe, there's a drawback in using Rupee or Dollar. You can use them only till a point. After that the digital universe needs some additional features and functionalities. This is what cryptocurrency is doing. It's called, the Internet's own money. I'm trying to avoid the term money so much, but I'm not able to. Cryptos were ideally formed to create an asset or a network that is very very helpful for the internet economy towards which we as a people are slowly moving. We are in an era of convenient exchange and decentralised monetary transactions and cryptocurrency plays an important role here.”

Challenges galore

Subburaj made it clear that one needs to have a good understanding of the sector as every cryptocurrency was not good. He called for governmental regulations in the sector.

“It's not easy to regulate the crypto ecosystem because every year something new comes. The Reserve Bank is worried about the negative aspects of the crypto such as frauds and terror funding.

Regulations are the first steps needed to stop the scams,” he said. He said the entire crypto sector was being blamed for the frauds committed by some cryptos.

The technology behind crypto

Crypto is built on blockchain technology, a database structure that enables it to provide a decentralized, secure payment system with faster transactions.

The future

Cryptocurrencies may be the next gold rush and could see significant growth for people who invest wisely. Hence, it is not just going to be an investment opportunity but a deeply governing aspect of our lives. Very few people believed in the capabilities of the internet two decades ago. Cryptocurrency is in that stage now, he said.

Founded in November 2017 by Subburaj and Arjun Vijay, both IIM-Calcutta alumni , Giottus started its operations in April 2018. Giottus’ aim is to mass-base cryptocurrency and enable customer wealth creation by adhering to the highest security and compliance standards.

In tune with this, Giottus offers Baskets, FD, and SIPs to discerning customers. (Baskets are a curated investment device whereas FDs offer the best rates on customers’ crypto assets. SIPs are systematic investment plans for the long term.)