Almost two-thirds of female crypto investors signing up to Binance-owned WazirX, one of India’s biggest crypto exchanges, hail from small cities such as Ahmedabad, Patna, Ranchi and Imphal, according to the company.
Fast facts
- WazirX reported a 2,648% surge in new user signups from small cities, referred to as Tier II and Tier III cities in India. Those cities represent 55% of total user signups on the exchange this year.
- Signups from large, or Tier I, cities, conversely, have increased by 2,375%.
- User signups have increased in Tier II cities such as Patna and Lucknow by 2,950%, while Tier III cities like Mohali and Ranchi saw a 2,455% jump in user signups.
- The report noted that women crypto investors in India from semi-urban and rural areas were overtaking their metropolitan counterparts, driven by increasing internet penetration in such areas.
- According to the report, crypto investments have helped women from small cities achieve financial freedom, raise their living standards and add a secondary income source for their families.
- WazirX COO and co-founder Siddharth Menon told Forkast.News that crypto awareness and literacy in India had also increased since the company started in 2018. He said: “[Women crypto investors from small cities] started with basic investments, and after that they went into learning about charting, technical analysis … and they have very good knowledge about how to sort of filter out good projects. And that by itself is a very good skill to have.”
- WazirX claims to have more than 7.3 million users and it has handled a trading volume of US$21.8 billion this year.
- The latest data from WazirX sheds light on the Indian crypto investment space, while the government does not collect any information on crypto-related transactions, crypto users or taxed crypto profits.