India is considered to be a huge market for Bitcoin businesses. The country has a lot of untapped potential when it comes to the Bitcoin sector, thanks to the large population, huge remittance market and lot of unbanked people. Even though ths is all true, the ground reality is something completely different when it comes to Bitcoin adoption.
The Indian Bitcoin industry is moving forward at a slower pace than expected, but there is growth nevertheless. The country currently has a handful of home-grown Bitcoin companies while many international players have announced their intentions of entering the Indian market.
With the country still in nascent stages of Bitcoin adoption, many people do not know about Bitcoin. There is a huge need to educate people about Bitcoin and its benefits. This will help increase the rate of adoption. Everyone who are currently part of the Indian Bitcoin community including Bitcoin companies share the same view, and they are working together to nurture the ecosystem. This is done by organizing frequent meet-ups, hackathons, lectures etc. in various cities across the country. These events are conducted with active involvement of both Bitcoin enthusiasts and companies.
Yesterday we got a chance to attend one of the two such Bitcoin meetups organized in Bangalore. These meetups are targeted towards newbies who are interested to know about Bitcoin, whereas in places with higher Bitcoin adoption, such meetups will be focused on discussions related to the future of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and the technology behind it.
In yesterday’s event, we observed a healthy mix of experts, enthusiasts and newbies among the attendees. The ratio of newbies to Bitcoiners was almost equal. The talks were mostly of introductory nature, explaining about Bitcoin, its history and the technology behind it. There were few attendees who were part of companies like Coinsecure, BTCX-India, Harborly and NewsBTC present at the event. Others included aspiring entrepreneurs interested in starting their own Bitcoin based ventures and those who just wanted to know what it is.
As the number of such meetups increase across the country, we can expect more and more people to learn about Bitcoin across the country, driving the Bitcoin economy forward
