India is seeing explosive growth in crypto investments compared to last year as the $40 billion milestone is crossed.

Rapid Growth In Cryptocurrency Compared To Last Year

As per a Bloomberg report, Indian investors now hold $40 billion in virtual assets, a massive increase from $200 million a year ago.

Traditionally, precious metals like gold have been the top choice of Indian investors. The young ones, however, are realizing the potential in digital currency.

Right now, around 15 million Indians use crypto, which is only 8 million less than the US figure of 23 million. It’s also much more than UK’s 2.3 million

While the number isn’t that impressive compared to the gigantic population of 1.3 billion, it’s still incredible growth in a country where families own 25,000 tonnes of gold.

Not just the general public, but also the Indian government is not supportive of cryptocurrencies. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has attempted to block digital asset trading in the country several times in the past.

Related Reading | How Polygon Became the Indian Tiger of Blockchain Platforms

However, last year, the Supreme Court overturned a policy set in 2018 according to which banks can’t trade in digital assets.

Investments came rushing in as soon as that happened. Though, there is still uncertainty in the air as to how the government will proceed next relating to cryptocurrencies.

It was only 6 months ago that the government proposed a trading ban on digital currencies. Despite all this, investments are massively up as per the data by chainalysis.

“I’d rather put my money in crypto than gold,” says Richi Sood, a young investor who took money out of gold, and put $13,400 in Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum in the past 7 months.

Crypto is more transparent than gold or property and returns are more in a short period of time.

Nonetheless, due to concerns over regulation, many investors are still hesitant about putting their money in digital coins. Even many who have invested don’t want to speak about it publicly as they fear future regulations like income taxes might be retroactive.

Bitcoin’s Price And Indian Crypto Market

The Indian market certainly has a lot of potential and it will be interesting to see how much more rapidly it can grow in the coming years.

China at around $160 billion has about 4 times the investment India has, and as it has been clear in the past month, the Chinese market can majorly impact Bitcoin’s price.

Related Reading | Comparing Past Crypto Cycles Suggests Bitcoin Nowhere Near Top

As Indian investments continues to grow, its market might also influence global prices. If such a tremendous growth continues in a huge population like India’s, cryptocurrencies are sure to see benefit in the long-term.

Right now, Bitcoin‘s price is going around $34k, up 5% in the last 7 days.

BTC price rebounds after the low | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView