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Festivals and celebrations have quite an effect on Bitcoin. While people celebrate with their friends and family during the holiday season, the adoption and number of Bitcoin transactions tend to increase as well. The variations are usually visible days if not weeks before the holiday season. Like Christmas and New Year, the Hindu festival of lights — Diwali is a huge deal in India.
People usually go on a shopping spree before Diwali. Online commerce platforms see a huge surge in sales, which is further encouraged by discounts and other offers. The budding Bitcoin ecosystem in India is also expected to see a rise in adoption with increased transaction volumes by October 20, the beginning of 5-day long Diwali celebrations.
Apart from trading, the Indian Bitcoin community is expected to spend their Bitcoin holdings on online shopping platforms. However, the lack of Bitcoin debit cards and Bitcoin-accepting e-commerce platforms in the country is forcing the Bitcoin community to use platforms like ZebPay to cater to their online shopping needs. ZebPay allows users to buy gift cards of the country’s major online retailers like Flipkart and Amazon with Bitcoin. The platform offers an additional discount of at least 5% on these gift cards.
At the same time, remittance industry is another sector where Bitcoin is soon going to play a huge role in the country. India is known to have the largest remittance market, receiving about $70 billion each year. The Indian diaspora spread across the world are known to send money to their immediate families and relatives back home. The remittance volumes also show a significant increase during festivals. While some people already use Bitcoin for cross-border transactions, the Indian Bitcoin companies are gradually moving to capture their share of the market as well.
Coinsecure, another Indian company has recently partnered with OKCoin’s OKLink to offer remittance services in the country over Bitcoin blockchain. As these companies venture into new market segments, there has been a significant capital inflow into them in the recent days. ZebPay and Coinsecure have already raised over a million dollar in investments each. Unocoin also joined the ranks recently by announcing its latest $1.5 million fundraising round from Indian and US investors.
READ MORE: Indian Bitcoin Startup UnoCoin Raises $1.5m in Latest Funding
This festival of lights is just a small stepping stone for the Indian Bitcoin industry which is growing at an accelerated pace.
Ref: PYMNTS | Bloomberg | Image: NewsBTC
