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Evangelising Crypto in India | Nischal Shetty @ WazirX
137 Plays4 years ago
Every problem has a solution. You just have to be creative enough to find it. Our guest in thisepisode is a problem solver at heart, who has used the art of coding to solve real-life problems.
Brace for the resilient journey of Nischal Shetty, Founder and CEO, WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
In a candid conversation with Akshay Datt, Nischal talks about his fascination for computers and his coding journey. It was in the second year of engineering when he was bitten by the coding bug and since then there’s been no looking back. From building the Knightloader App for a college project (the App helped in downloading reading material from the Internet at night) to transforming his weekend passion project to Crowdfire which helped users to unfollow people on Twitter, Nischal has found logical solutions to problems via coding.
He further talks about how a major setback with Crowdfire inspired him to build something that no one else can control. He found his calling in cryptocurrency and this is where the journey of WazirX began.
Tune in to this episode to hear Nischal speak about how cryptocurrency has the power to disrupt the well-established and archaic BFSI sector, with WazirX being the torchbearer of this change.
Key takeaways:
● Cryptocurrency 101
● India’s response to cryptocurrency
● The association between WazirX and Binance (the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange).
● Cryptocurrency as a means to diversify investments
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Founder Thesis Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hi, I'm Akshay Hi, this is Saurabh and you are listening to the founder thesis podcast We meet some of the most celebrated sort of founders in the country and we want to learn how to build a unicorn
Cryptocurrency Insights with Nischal Shetty
00:00:32
Speaker
What do you think of when you hear the word cryptocurrency? I'm guessing you fall into one of the two camps. This word either represents the latest fad or is the future of money in the world.
00:00:45
Speaker
Our guest today, Nischal Shetty, is firmly in the category of believers, so much so that he founded Vazirex as one of the first crypto exchange platforms in India. Listen to Akshay Dutt talk to Nischal and demystify blockchain, cryptocurrency and Bitcoin.
Nischal's Engineering Journey
00:01:03
Speaker
Nishchal is one of the most respected voices in this field in India and he helps us to take a balanced and long-term perspective towards cryptocurrency beyond the headlines of the latest Bitcoin prices.
00:01:22
Speaker
But for whatever reason, I think in 12th, I did not spend a lot of time studying. I was more of just loafing around, I think. So I could not get through the medical entrance test and decided that engineering is the second option. And I had sort of an inkling towards computers. So I went to computer science. And that's how my journey into the whole engineering computer engineering started.
00:01:52
Speaker
So it was just accidental, I think I became an engineer. Okay, so how were those four years in college like? So the thing is, when I took up engineering, I think I took up computer engineering because I just liked computers. I didn't know much about it.
00:02:11
Speaker
And this was way back in 2007, I think. 2003 is when I got into engineering. And those times, it was still the early days of internet. No, I went to a college in Bangalore called NITD, N-I-T-T-E. And this was the early days. And especially in that, in Bangalore,
College Projects and Software Development
00:02:37
Speaker
internet was not really easy to access.
00:02:40
Speaker
So we used to get like that one hour in your internet lab where you can, yeah, computer lab. I've got my first desktop also in my first year of engineering. Before that, I did not have a desktop at home. So the first year again was more like fun, not being serious. And then second year, what happened is there was this, I still remember there was this project that you had to do.
00:03:10
Speaker
And you would have an external examiner come in to look at your project. And like every other colleague back then, we downloaded it from the internet and presented it. This is what everyone did. They downloaded the project. They did not work on it, presented it as their own project. So I did the same. And I was surprised the examiner knew what students do.
00:03:35
Speaker
So while we got terrible marks, I think the lesson I learned is the examiner put it over and said, you know, if you're going to just think about marks in life, you're not going to get anywhere. Think about why is this in the syllabus? Why are you told this so that you can learn? And that, I think, was a defining moment. See, he might not know what he did. But I think it's an amazing thing that he said, because usually what happens is teachers just shout at you.
00:04:05
Speaker
He told me the why. Why are you supposed to do this? And he said, it's not the marks. For marks, yeah, you can download and do it. But when you do it, you'll learn it. So I made it a point that in the second time, I'll build something on my own. So this was the fourth semester where, again, we had a project. And while my friends, again, all of them around me were downloading, and then this time they were tweaking it so that it's not seen as a copy, I built it from scratch.
00:04:33
Speaker
And I learned a lot. And I was really looking forward to the external coming in. This was a new external examiner. Surprisingly, he gave the same marks well, including me. He never saw my project. But I think in that moment, it was not marks anymore. It was not about someone seeing the joy. I think the fact I could show, and this, I built a small game in C Graph folks.
00:05:00
Speaker
And the fact that I could talk about it, even today I talk about it. See now I'm talking about it. I think that movement defined it saying that it doesn't matter what others think, what external examiners think, but that satisfaction of doing something on your own. I think that I caught on to the bug, suffering that game was called bug attack. It was about a farmer saving his farm from bugs by shooting at them. So yeah, I think that was my defining moment into the world of building.
00:05:30
Speaker
products and software. And after that, I've never looked back. In my fourth year of engineering, again, when the final year of projects were there, again, I built it on my own. While this time, my friends had gotten sophisticated. There was a company where you could pay them to build up your custom software. The progress people made is amazing. But for me, it was fun after that. My project, it was a team of three. The other two did not do anything. It was just me. And I did not complain. I got them to make the document.
00:06:01
Speaker
But I did the coding. So I win-win for everyone.
From Corporate to Startups
00:06:05
Speaker
But yeah, that was fun. And this was, again, practical, because this was a software I built where you could download things from the internet at the night. Because in the morning, you had these internet download restrictions. And you had to pay for them. While from 9 PM to 10 AM, downloads were free. So I built a desktop app where you could choose what you want to download. And that night, it was shut down.
00:06:31
Speaker
Like anything you have videos, anything you want videos, you just had to like bookmark it and the software would be on your desktop. It would start downloading in the night. So in the month that I had called it night loaded with a K with a K row. And, and the surprising thing was on that very day, our internet in our, in our exam, this thing was not working. So, so I could not demo it, but then the teacher appreciated the fact that we did.
00:06:59
Speaker
And I remember we got one of the highest for that person. But yeah, it's like, and I think this is where the learning of, you know, no matter how well you prepared you are, things can go wrong, I think. And that's what I'm experiencing startups as well right now. But I think college played a very crucial part in putting me in that direction of entrepreneurship. So yeah, that was my early day.
00:07:26
Speaker
Was being in a job as much fun? I mean, you learned to be a software engineer and then you joined a software company. Was that also fun or did you get bored? I think it was fun because, see, though college gives you a theoretical understanding and you might do all of these. You really sitting there in the college, you don't know what happens inside a company and you know how things are done. So I got through campus and
00:07:53
Speaker
And by the way, my campus story was also interesting. I was so busy building. I was not into learning, and I'm really not a theoretical guy. So I had a couple of back papers. So I was not allowed to sit for any of the campus placement, except this one company where the guy said anyone in the college gets it. So around 800 people sat for it. And they choose only some five people, and I was one among. And that was my only choice. If not that, I would not have gotten into a campus job.
00:08:23
Speaker
And this was 2007 as soon as we graduated the whole town. So there were a lot of people without jobs. So I was fortunate to get into this. But I think I learned a lot on how companies operate and how do you work with others because you in college, you're just sort of you and your friends versus here, there's a new set of people you don't really know and you have to work with them. So I think I learned those things in the first two years, two, two and a half years I worked in my first
00:08:53
Speaker
more of a corporate job. Still, it was sort of like a startup within that corporate. Like this guy was running it. Like I said, he didn't want to follow the norm of only people without a backlog can sit for interviews. So he said, anyone can sit. So he was sort of trying to build something different within that corporate company. So two, two and a half years, that was fun. After that, I mean, then it was a... What was the product? Yeah, it was a product for the recruitment industry where recruiters could
00:09:23
Speaker
follow the entire it was an HRM software and this was the pre-sas case so we had to customize the software for different databases the installation was where you had to go to the premise and install it for the clients and you know that whole thing the pre-sas
00:09:39
Speaker
So there I learned a lot. Obviously, within corporates, different things don't always work. The division was shut down after, I think, two years. So I started looking out for a job. I was still employed in a different project, which was interesting, but not that good. It was, again, a services kind of thing. You had to build for some Sri Lankan government. I was building something. But it was not fun. So I finally happened to write to burb.com.
00:10:06
Speaker
Bob.com back then was the other restaurant review website, default one for India. This was before Zomato or Switi or anything happened. And I wrote to them and I think the founder got back. Then I went to Mumbai to interview. I was in Bangalore in my first shop. So I went to Mumbai to interview. I almost missed my flight, I remember, because I think those were one of the first times I traveled by flight alone. And I didn't know that you had to be there like 45 minutes before. So I barely made it.
00:10:37
Speaker
and they had closed the gate and I told them that please let me in because otherwise I will miss my interview so they made arrangements for me to be alone transported to the plane so I think that is again something you know because if I had missed it maybe I would have got in the job
00:10:54
Speaker
So I made it and to the interview, I cleared it. And that's how my journey to the startup began because this was a startup, a proper startup with people being like, you know, planning and work, kind of a culture, coming shorts, and founders talking to you, everyone on the same desk, no cabins, like a big area, you just sit and work. So that's where my entry into startup began.
Growth of Crowdfire
00:11:21
Speaker
So I joined and that's where I realized that
00:11:24
Speaker
you could have an idea and you can start up. Before that, I did not know how do you build such large companies. Because in a corporate, what happens is there are so many layers, there are so many people around you, it just seems impossible that one person can do anything. And then you have a startup with 20, 30 people, then you realize, okay, small companies can be built, this is how you start. So yeah, that was my entry point. And then around there, because this got acquired,
00:11:52
Speaker
a lot of people, the key people started, you know, slowly they were trying out their own ideas on the site. So that's when I got motivated to try my own ideas. And I started experimenting during the weekends to build products. And that's when I think I built my first product, which ultimately became Crowdfire. It was more like a weekend thing. Okay.
00:12:19
Speaker
So you also written 25 in your LinkedIn bio as another startup you did around the time that was just a blog. But the early days, what happens is when you it was a blog that used to review different products built on Twitter. And if I reached out to the founder saying, hey, I'm a guy who's running a blog, they don't get back.
00:12:46
Speaker
But if you reach out to them saying, hey, instead of I, you use V, it changes a lot of things. So I used to project this as a startup, though it was a single guy writing a blog and reach out to people. But that was just a blog which I maintained. That helped me a lot, though, in understanding what the market wanted. Because when you write blog posts, you get an idea on what is red mode, what your audience wants.
00:13:15
Speaker
So that definitely gave me direction in social networks. What were people looking for? And I realized that people are looking for growth on social media. They wanted to grow. They wanted more followers. That's how I ended up building Crowdfire. OK, so tell me about the Crowdfire journey like you. What did you originally started as? People are looking for growth. And I think before that,
00:13:44
Speaker
the bigger problem there was in the early twitter day you could follow as many people as you wanted and for growing what people used to do they used to follow like say a thousand people so that a thousand people get to know about them and maybe a hundred people might follow you back yeah and that's how you grow your following the problem with this was when you follow a thousand people your timeline on twitter gets flooded with unwanted tweets
00:14:11
Speaker
So then people are then looking to rectify that mistake. And that's where I saw an opportunity and I built an easy way for people to unfollow people in large numbers. So that's how the first version started and that became viral. People started sharing it crazy. And I think the first day itself, I saw 5,000 people signing up. And within a few months, I think there were 200, 300,000 people already.
00:14:39
Speaker
And maybe in eight months or nine months, we were close to 800,000 or a million users. And while this was happening, I was still working at Perp, and this was still a weekend project for me. So there was no one else, me alone coding on Sunday and Sunday, or on weekdays after I go back home.
00:15:00
Speaker
About three months into this, three or four months into this weekend project, the number of people using it was so large that I could not afford to pay the server charges. It was expensive and I had not monetized it. So what I decided was I need to pay the server charges, let's monetize it. So I put a simple paywall saying if you want to unfollow more than 25 people in a day, you had to pay $10 like a one-time fee.
00:15:30
Speaker
and I thought maybe you know, I'll get a few hundred dollars and Pay off the server charges and the server charge about maybe two hundred three hundred dollar But yeah at that time you're you're doing a regular job two hundred three hundred dollars a lot of money to be out of your pocket So so I put this surprisingly I think within the first few weeks I Started making way more money than my job was paying my entire
00:15:58
Speaker
So that's where I understood the power of the internet. See, what happens is I've seen the offline world. I've seen my dad's restaurant. I've seen the number of people who can come, who can pay, how much percentage cut you would make from that. But here you are in the internet world where your expenses is not a software developer is nothing except for your server charges.
00:16:22
Speaker
the distribution that you get online is mind-blowing you know we are just so used to numbers like hundred thousand million but you put that in the offline world perspective there is no business that can accommodate a hundred thousand people coming except for maybe the stadiums the largest stadiums no one can so you know we don't get that perspective but you know even if a small percentage of those people pay there's a ton of money
00:16:49
Speaker
And that realization happened when I put this payboy. Till then, I never knew that you could make this kind of money. And my blog was not paying me a lot because advertisements don't pay you a lot. Like 10,000 views, you will get $100, $10, $20. So this is where the, and this was the early days of SaaS. SaaS was not such a known term, by the way. Nobody thought that, you know. And my first model was not SaaS. It was a one-time payment.
00:17:19
Speaker
When I saw that one-time payment and eventually then you learn, then I converted that to a monthly payment. And that shot up my revenue like crazy. And you were still in your job? It was I think the whole traditional mindset. There was nothing else that was keeping me there. And when I told my parents I need to quit, they were also on it.
00:17:47
Speaker
They also, because they saw me in a job, I was happy. They were like, I'm sure you want to quit. I told them, yeah, I'm making more money, but I don't think parents really bother so much about how much their kids make compared to the kids being happy. For the parents, it's more happiness. And I think, yeah, and maybe my dad coming from a business background understands what it takes. Back then, to be honest, even I did not anticipate the kind of unsettled life that you could lead as an entrepreneur.
00:18:16
Speaker
And no matter how much money you make, the job versus an entrepreneurship, they're really two different mindsets. And you need to take a choice. There's nothing good or bad. It's this or that. But I think I just took that dive because I knew that here I'm making enough. If I go wrong also, I can always get back to a job. And I would have saved enough to not worry about my expenses.
00:18:44
Speaker
So I would say in a way it was more accidental for me to quit my job.
Pivoting Crowdfire's Business Model
00:18:50
Speaker
I'd see today and I don't know.
00:18:52
Speaker
I see a lot of people who say I quit my job. I'm trying to figure out the next thing I want to do in my startup. Maybe it's a new generation thing. Maybe because there's more stability in their lives, even otherwise, I think. But back in the day, I had to make sure I was financially secure before I could quit. So that was my journey back then. And that's how the whole startup thing started.
00:19:21
Speaker
Okay. So once you got into it full time, like when did you change the name to crowdfire? That was not the original name you had. So these are typical mistakes where, you know, when you are building something, you think in the moment and name it. And I was building a tool to unfollow. So I named it just unfollow. Now that worked well for a year, a year and a half or two years.
00:19:47
Speaker
But then I wanted to build more features and the problem was no matter how much I built, no one was using anything else apart from the unfollow feature. Because that's the mindset people come with that it's just unfollow. So I wanted to build a social media management suite, a set of tools for managing all your social networks in a single place.
00:20:13
Speaker
The way you have like the tools today, you have like HubSpot and Hootsuite. Yeah, so Crowds are the best competitors to Hootsuite and Buffalo today. And that is what way back this was. I think we renamed it 2014 or 2015. So yeah, three, four years we were running as Justin. Lines are blurred right now. But I think in 2014, we renamed it mostly or 15.
00:20:39
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Okay. And, uh, like, did you bring on a co-founder or you were like running it alone and you built up a team and all that? Like, you know, how did it progress? Like first year after quitting, what kind of revenue did you make? What kind of headcount did you have? And then how did that grow? The first person to join me was about four months after I quit. And that was my, was co-founded, my tech co-founder Sami. He was working with me at birth.
00:21:08
Speaker
So it was easy to convince him to join me. And he joined me. And then after a year later, my third co-founder, Siddharth, joined me. He was running his own startup. Then we realized that together we could build his past. So he joined. So they joined later, but I gave them the co-founder type because this was still early days of running the company. So yeah, that's how three of us got together.
00:21:37
Speaker
But our headcount, I think the second year of starting up when Sami joined me, it was just me and him. The third year, I think we were like four or five people. We had scaled up to five people because we realized a lot of work had to be done. We had the money to... So we bootstrapped this first business to a million dollars in revenue without any funding and about 6 million or 7 million users by 2014 or 2030.
00:22:03
Speaker
the same thing that I started in 2010 as a side project. In three years, it had scaled up. And in 2015, we raised that first round of $2.5 million from Kalari Capital. But till then, yeah, that was... This was like the series A. Then after raising the series A, we scaled up really fast to about 70, 80 people by 2016 or 2017, I think.
00:22:32
Speaker
So this series was with what objective to build it into a like a buffer kind of a platform, like a complete platform in that time, they were only about scheduling. And they were also trying to navigate towards becoming a suite suite was probably that one of those first few who had the vision to be a social media management software, right from day one.
00:23:02
Speaker
And it's because of Ryan who's the founder. He comes from that agency background where they used to do it for the agencies. So I think his background helped him understand what the market wants. Me was accidental. I think Buffer also was sort of, they were accidental guys. They built a scheduling software which scaled up. So yeah, I think this is a different between first time entrepreneurs versus people who've done it before.
00:23:26
Speaker
you sort of have a bit more, I would say, insights into what the market wants compared to new Bs. But that's okay. Everyone has their own pros and cons. So yeah, we built this and we started scaling it up. And we tripled our revenues, I think, to 3 million within a year and a half of raising our first drop. So that went really well. But then in 2016, December, I think,
00:23:54
Speaker
Instagram changed the rules of their APIs. And that's where my first understanding that you're building on top of some other third party APIs. The problem is when your features clash with their monetization, they're going to get yours. And our biggest features were providing you growth. And if you look at the social networks today,
00:24:21
Speaker
The way, one of the, apart from advertisement, one of the best ways for them to make money is by getting you to pay for growing your social network, your profiles on their platform. So people pay for trending hashtags, people pay for gaining followers. They're all paid to Instagram, Facebook. Back in the day, people used to grow organically using our software by paying us just $10 a month. So they started removing these APIs. They started putting out rules and you can't build these features.
00:24:50
Speaker
And these guys are really smart with narratives. So many of these social networks, they said this is to cut the spam. This is to cut the unwanted usage of our social network. This is all bullshit data. There was no spam. We were helping people to cut out the spam by unfalling people. There is no spam in unfalling. And if you do not follow enough people, how do you even know who are the people you need to be following, who are the people treating them?
00:25:17
Speaker
So all of this, if you see, it was all crap because they wanted to build their own feed where they can feed you things they want you to see, not what you want to see or not what you should discover. You see the social networks of today, their feed, their algorithms are trained to show you what they want you to see, not what you should be seeing or you want to see. It's not designed for that. So this was all the precursor to that, to the world that we are in today, where social networks control what we consume.
00:25:46
Speaker
They control who grows on their networks and who does not. You've seen what has happened while we may not politically agree, but Trump has been banned today. So, you know, ultimately, I think it was all a very vicious thing that kept happening and we were collateral damage. Our top peak got cut out and that led to a lot of trouble for us because our revenues took a hit.
00:26:11
Speaker
So we had to downsize the company. And this is for no fault of us. We were running really well. We were growing 3X every year. But yeah, it also gives you an understanding of never to build on top of these centralized companies because the day they are done with you, they'll cut you off. So I don't recommend anyone to ever do that.
00:26:38
Speaker
Did Hootsuite and Buffer also go through this period of contraction? And was this only Instagram, or did it happen on multiple platforms, like the restrictions of third-party innovations? This happened everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and everyone has been affected. Hootsuite, for example, used to give you that feed. You could view your timeline on Twitter. And I think today you can't do that for a few of the social networks.
00:27:05
Speaker
Instagram is also almost cut off a lot of the you can't do the feed you can't you know follow on from you can't do that at all You can't easily reply to direct messages. There's a lot of things that have been cut off So but the thing is for them what work is from day one at least for the firm they were more B2B They were more towards companies For us and my my DNA is more consumer
00:27:30
Speaker
I was more about the consumers, which is why we have more users acquired in the last 10 years, which is over 20 million compared to even Hootsuite or Buffer. No one has close to our users base. So the kind of growth we saw was because we were consumer. We were not B2B. But after this happened, we had to move to B2B. Now we are more B2B.
00:27:56
Speaker
Okay, like you were catering more to people who were influencers or want to be influencers. It was more about I was a big champion of the influencer segment. And this was even before influencers were a big thing like the podcasters, the youtubers, all of them, by the way, you see users, they've grown a lot of most of the influences of, you know, that you see today who've been there for five, six years, they've all used crowdfire to grow. And there's nothing wrong in that because if they don't
00:28:27
Speaker
How will people discover? There is no other way. No one is magically going to get to know you unless you have a celebrity on television or you're getting caught in the local media. No one will know that you are a good podcaster or a good YouTube. The only way to know was for you to reach out to the people on your own. But again, what I've seen in all this whole thing is nobody cares about the small guy.
00:28:53
Speaker
It's only where the big money is, where it's the large companies and everyone builds things around them. The others just have to pick the pieces and adjust themselves to the ecosystem that exists. That's how it is. So Crowdfire is still like a scaled-down version of what it is. In terms of features, it's a scaled-up version because we've now got a lot more features.
00:29:17
Speaker
In terms of active user base, it's definitely a smaller number because it's B2B now.
Understanding Blockchain and Bitcoin
00:29:23
Speaker
You could also use it. A lot of influencers use it. But more than influencers, the revenue model, everything works better for, let's say, agencies, companies, startups, all those.
00:29:37
Speaker
And you are like, you moved on to your next venture. So you're not actively involved in cloudfire anymore. They're running it. They've been people who've been with us like the initial day after. One of them joined us. I think they were all, most of the people are in the top, the first 10 people who joined us back then. So they're running it and they love working on what I'm doing.
00:30:02
Speaker
But I was, like I said, my DNA is more consumer. I somehow don't connect with the whole business software. Not yet. I wouldn't say never, but not yet. So I started looking out for what's next. And it was not just consumer. The second was the reason why I told you about these social networks and their control on the ecosystem of developers is I was looking for what is it that I can build where nobody else controls what I built.
00:30:32
Speaker
And that happened to be crypto. The blockchain ecosystem is one where it's a permissionless distributed ledger. So that permissionless is the thing that attracted me. You don't have to ask anyone to build something on top of this. And which is why I got into this whole ecosystem and said, I'll build something on them.
00:30:59
Speaker
So like, you know, give me an elevator pitch of blockchain. Like if you were to convince a VC to fund a blockchain based business, what would be the elevator pitch for blockchain as a technology? Like, you know, just like a simplified version. I think, see, look at the Internet. The Internet at the very basic level is just a peer to peer transfer of information.
00:31:29
Speaker
what you and me are doing right now, it's information flowing between me to you, you to me. And the entire internet that has been built is built on this philosophy of information transfer from peer to peer. Now, the crypto networks, the blockchain is peer to peer transfer of value. Okay, you have to remember and understand this. Peer to peer transfer of information created the digital
00:31:58
Speaker
internet age and transform the world. What happens when this peer-to-peer transfer of value takes over and comes as the second layer on top of this information? Now you can have hundreds and thousands of applications that will be built on this very concept. I cannot even tell you what can be built because like in 1995, I could not tell you to book a cab and travel. You can survive a pandemic on information transfer. But peer-to-peer value transfer
00:32:27
Speaker
is the underlying concept of everything that is happening in the SQL system today. So if I were to use an analogy, so like say earlier, if you wanted to be a video creator, you would have to go through a TV channel. But now you can just upload a video on YouTube and directly reach your audience. Yeah, democratize the information. You know, you're a podcast, so you study alone. You don't have to worry about it. You're on the internet. Anyone can access it.
00:32:57
Speaker
you don't need a middle man, right? That's what you needed a middle man for in the broadcasting point. So like right now RBI is say a middle man for exchange of value. And you know, let's go below that RBI. So why they're doing is they don't have a technology to not be the middle man. The way you see in the offline world, for example, when I have to pay you a hundred rupees, I take out a hundred rupee note, give it to you.
00:33:26
Speaker
That's a transaction between me and you. Now, in the internet world, that was not possible till blockchain and Bitcoin was created. Because in the internet world, when you make a transfer, you're actually instructing your bank online to make a transfer to my bank account online. So it's a three party, four party, five party system. But when you send me a Bitcoin from your wallet to mine, it is just between me and you. It's exactly a replica of the cash system online.
00:33:57
Speaker
So now, you know, this is what is the whole magic. And once you understand this magic, no one can tell you what applications can be built because in fact, I know it, I'll build it. I would want to be those early movers in this space, you know. But again, I think it will take some time because the infrastructure is being built. It's like the internet did not become the internet until undersea cables were laid all over the world. So it takes some time to build out this infrastructure, which is the stage at which the blockchain world is right now, the infrastructure building stage.
00:34:28
Speaker
So like Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are one of the use cases of blockchain and possibly currently the most popular. So the internet has websites. The blockchain has crypto. Any use cases will have to be built with crypto in the mix. You cannot build it in isolation because then it becomes like your intranet versus internet.
00:34:56
Speaker
So if you run a network within a company, that's the intranet, right? And that's okay within that company. So if you were to remove crypto, then that becomes an intranet application within your company. You can have blockchain only application within your company or within two companies that trust each other. But if you want a truly permissionless system, crypto has to be there to protect the network. Because why? See, if you have a permissionless system,
00:35:25
Speaker
What's the first thought that comes to your mind that I can write garbage into it. I can change the data. I can, you know, really do bad things. This is where your cryptocurrency comes in to protect the network because it makes it expensive for you to write into it. Okay. Okay. How does it work? Like what are the nuts and bolts? So let's distill it. Now a blockchain is nothing but an open database.
00:35:55
Speaker
Think of it as a notebook, which is kept publicly for anyone to come and write. All right. That's the core philosophy. But the problem is, if you do that, anyone will come and write anything. And what is written in this notebook is nothing but the transaction details, saying, let's say, Akshay transferred one Bitcoin to this channel.
00:36:18
Speaker
Yes, it's a kata book. It's like a kata book. Now to protect the network, what was designed is if you want to write, sure you can write, but you can only write if you solve a puzzle. A puzzle, which is a mathematical equation. Let's take, for example, to simplify, let's say one plus one equal to two. So the puzzle will be one plus X equal to two. So you need to find X. Okay.
00:36:45
Speaker
Now the puzzle is whoever solves it first can write into the book. Okay, so let's say one plus X equal to two and I say one. So I'm the one who solved it first. Now I get the opportunity to write into the book, let's say 10 minutes. And for solving the puzzle, I get rewarded X number of Bitcoins. So when I write into the book, I can also write five Bitcoin to myself.
00:37:13
Speaker
So that's where I make money where my motivation to solve the puzzle comes. And this cycle has continued from the last 10 years. It's a puzzle every time you solve it, you write 10 entry. Again, the new puzzle comes and you solve it. On day one when this started, the puzzle was simple because the puzzle difficulty increases based on the number of participants. Okay, so on day one, you could solve this puzzle with your simple computer.
00:37:41
Speaker
But as the network grew, today you need a server farm to solve the puzzle. Because the puzzle has gotten that much more difficult. So one security feature is of course that there is a puzzle, but then there is also like a distributed ledger as the other security feature, right? We spoke about this one book. The problem with this one book is everyone will have to come to that one location.
00:38:07
Speaker
So instead of that, let's replicate this book entry into let's say 10,000 books divided all around the world. Okay, so now there are 10,000 copies of this. But the puzzle is still the same. And whoever solves it writes into their book, then the others will copy it. Now the thing is, let's say you solve the puzzle and you want to do something malicious. Okay, so you solve the puzzle, you will write a wrong entry.
00:38:36
Speaker
Then what happens, someone else who also now has a solution to the puzzle can say, no, this guy has written a wrong entry. Let me write the right entry. Now the others in the network will go with the right entry. So that reward, which you were supposed to get, but because you put the wrong entry, you lose the reward, the other guy gets the reward. So you're not motivated to put the wrong entry. And this is how you protect the network. This is a beautifully designed
00:39:05
Speaker
decentralized way. This is so simple on the core, yet no one found it until 2009 when Satoshi made it. But this is all the magic. There's nothing beyond this.
00:39:23
Speaker
So like in a way it is built-in incentives for people to A maintain the Tata book and B be honest. This honesty gets no rewards, honesty gets you rewards of rates, I think 6.25 Bitcoin. So that's about $200,000. So the question is, would you risk that to write a wrong interview where you know the other softwares are not going to take that? And every 10 minutes they are going to remove it.
00:39:54
Speaker
Okay. And because it's so expensive to create a Bitcoin now because of the complexity, therefore the value of Bitcoin has also gone up. Like why has the value of Bitcoin gone up? Because there is no underlying asset. Like in currency you have gold as like supposedly an asset or like, you know, you have the sovereign backing of currency. But what is the underlying value of Bitcoin? Trust in the network is what is valued.
00:40:22
Speaker
On day one, when there were five people in that network, the value was maybe there was no value on 2009, 2010, because there were like 10, 20 people, 30 people. But as more and more people started trusting the network and trusting the blockchain, the value of the cryptocurrency increases. Now you have an ecosystem today of maybe, I don't know, 100 million people who trust Bitcoin.
00:40:48
Speaker
And trust is what drives everything in the world. And trust, if you want to distill trust, is more about acknowledgement. When 70, 80, 90 million people agree on a common, let's say, cryptocurrency, it means they all trust it. You know, like words, I can create any word I want, but only words that are accepted everywhere have meaning.
00:41:15
Speaker
So, so ultimately your cryptocurrency is backed by the trust of the people in the network and that is where the value comes. And because it is limited in number, you can only have 21 million Bitcoin. The price as the network grows, the price is supposed to increase. Now, now see the thing is while those who do not understand want to say that it's a pawn side, people are just in it. But there is something that those 70, 80, 90 million people know
00:41:44
Speaker
that maybe there might be some trick to it. And I'll tell you what it is. You spoke about gold. There is no verifiable method in the world today to estimate how much gold is in circulation. Which is why you often come across scams where I think one of the latest was in China where more gold than what they had was acknowledged.
00:42:11
Speaker
And then they had loans taken on top of that non-existent gold, because you cannot verify. Then recently, I saw a news article where some gold was seized, and it was in the CPI or some under their control. When they opened it, there was not enough gold in that, as again what they thought. It's not verifiable. But when I tell you that there is only going to be 21 million, you can verify that on that other board.
00:42:38
Speaker
And that is something that is solid and you cannot change it. So this 70-80 million people believe a verifiable book record is much more valuable than something that's unverifiable and purely on just assumptions. So if you want to store your value, now the question is, would you save it on a verifiable blockchain or would you trust all your wealth on a non-verifiable asset like good?
00:43:06
Speaker
Okay, now you don't have to take that choice. You don't have to make a zero and one. What you can do is you can diversify which is where from an investor point of view the thought processes if tomorrow gold gets devalued for whatever reason because maybe we thought the market cap of gold is today around 12 trillion dollars because there's maybe X tons of gold in the market. But maybe there's there's two X gold in the market or maybe that's half of X. You don't know what it is.
00:43:36
Speaker
So this is why you take a hedge against these offline world and say that I also want to put some of my value into Bitcoin. So that's just one thought process that exists.
00:43:51
Speaker
These 70, 80 million people who trust Bitcoin are essentially trusting it as an investment option, like a diversification of their investment portfolio option. Or is there also other value of Bitcoin, like as a medium of exchange? I just told you one perspective. See, it's a lot like the Internet. The Internet to you might be different from the Internet. For example, in Venezuela, what is happening?
00:44:19
Speaker
is their currency is being devalued. And yes, people there found a way to sustain or to, I would say, contain their wealth and to protect it was to buy Bitcoin. Because if you buy gold, you have physical gold which can be complicated. You have your current fee, it will be devalued. How do you conserve? How do you store your wealth
00:44:49
Speaker
for that time frame when your country is going through a rough waters or it can be seized by your government is by putting it into Bitcoin and holding that custody with yourself. Because like I said, this is pure cash. You don't have to trust anyone to hold your Bitcoin. So that's one more point of view. The other is, now let's take the India example where I keep telling that Bitcoin is going to play a very, very important role.
00:45:18
Speaker
is remittances today when you want to bring in money to India from your friends or family sending you dollars there is a slippage of 7 to 10 percent if you don't realize by the way because the financial system is so inefficient and so smart that the common man does not realize what they're losing you know that a hundred dollar loses about seven to eight percent by the time it reaches you in iron okay
00:45:46
Speaker
Okay. Like transfer fees and the currency exchange rate is not curable. Everything is in currency conversion, banks in between taking charges, everything when it comes to you, it's already lost seven to 8%. But if it was Bitcoin, your family can just immediately transfer. So one is it's instant, you don't have to wait two to three days. Second is there is no slippage of value.
00:46:11
Speaker
Now extrapolate that to India Singh, I think India sees $100 to $200 billion worth of RMA taxes. That 8% is about $15 to $20 billion lost to this middleman who are nothing but the financial systems whose only aim is to make money off of it, nothing else. So I think that is a very beautiful use case for India.
00:46:38
Speaker
So why isn't everyone doing it? And wouldn't this bankrupt a lot of financial sector players if everyone started to do it? It's like why is not everyone ordering online. That is always an offline world. So it's not about bankrupting someone. Everyone has their own use cases. Maybe that convenience, maybe that not understanding technology. This is how it is. My payments may not buy online because for them offline.
00:47:04
Speaker
So it's more of that. So the internet world that is this whole Bitcoin world is being built for a new generation which does not want to interact with the whole world. And there's a lot of new value that will emerge from here. And a lot of people are already doing it. Do you have a question why is not everyone doing it? A lot of people are doing it. And I believe as the understanding percolates to the rest of the masses in India, they will all start doing this. Now, I'll tell you the other from a country point of view why this is important is today,
00:47:35
Speaker
India relies on the US dollar. But that US dollar is now coming back to my same story of I built on top of a third party API who pulled it off. India today has to listen and agree to what the US says. If India was to run some nuclear tests, there will be sanctions, India will be out of the financial system for or get some or the other sanctions imposed. And how does
00:48:02
Speaker
How are these sanctions imposed by saying you can't deal with countries that deal with dollar? But if India was to own Bitcoin, no country can put any sanctions on India or tell India what to do and what not. So we are in a very archaic, very old school world of today, saying we are valuing ourselves with the dollar we hold as country. Think about it. The dollar is printed by the US with no backing. There's no gold behind it. It's fiat money.
00:48:30
Speaker
We are indirectly just, I would say, tagging along and helping the dollar grow. We are not growing either. We are growing the dollar. I don't see the point of why are we proud of holding dollars in our assets.
Cryptocurrency Regulations in India
00:48:46
Speaker
We should own gold, we should own Bitcoin, because these are decentralized assets. So that's where my point of remittances will play a major part in helping India be more self-reliant.
00:49:04
Speaker
But is Bitcoin safe in India? The government seems to have like a somewhat unfriendly attitude towards Bitcoin. And I think there have been a lot of developments also. If you could just talk about those developments. Fight-of-flight response that we humans have in-built in us when you see something you don't understand, you either want to fight it or run away from it.
00:49:28
Speaker
But as slowly, this is the internet what happened. I used to call it a fraud and when I was in 10th January I ordered a wallet that was Gucci wallet on eBay and some fake wallet came to me. And then I was like the internet is a fraud and for a few years I did not use the internet. But you know eventually you understand and today you survive a pandemic with the internet. So the same thing is playing out here.
00:49:52
Speaker
it is going to be that period of time where we are going to see a lot of heartache in the regulatory landscape because you know first it starts with oh it's a threat or it's going to cause issues or criminals use it though less than one person criminals would use it and the criminals were dumb enough to think that bitcoin is not traceable because cash is a way better system in the offline world than bitcoin where everything is on an open ledger so you wouldn't use that for criminal activities
00:50:22
Speaker
But yeah, ultimately what happens is this all these misunderstandings eventually, I think when we look back when let's say three to five years down the line, we'll be like, okay, this was all a small blip where we had to just explain and understand make countries understand what this is all about. So it's all about spreading the knowledge. And yeah, maybe India might have some issues like now we had a banking ban in 2018. And we had to go to the Supreme Court after two years we won it in 2020.
00:50:52
Speaker
But there was a two years where India just destroyed an ecosystem. So I really feel sad knowing that our lawmakers and all are seeing in a very different direction. But I wouldn't blame them right now. I like the fact that at least that is happening. See, it's better to do something even in the wrong direction rather than just sitting on the side.
00:51:16
Speaker
So while this seems to be not the best approach, but I think even if they've started negative, I am confident that with enough dialogue, we'll get it to a situation where we can positively get this right. So that as a nation, we don't stay all behind others in the state.
00:51:35
Speaker
Okay. So tell me about the Wazerex journey. So around 16, 17, you realize that you don't want to build on top of other properties, like on top of the Facebook owned properties or Twitter and so on. So then from that to where you are today in your journey,
Founding and Growth of WazirX
00:51:55
Speaker
like tell me about that. So yeah, my journey was because this is decent and no one can say what to do.
00:52:02
Speaker
But a disclaimer, the government can tell you what to do and what not to do. So while I have kept the private companies out here, the government is setting up sort of do's and don'ts in the sector, which is OK. It's needed. But ultimately, I think we launched this in 2018. Now, there's an entire startup understanding here on how to go about, because this was my second time. I knew how to go fast.
00:52:32
Speaker
So the first thing was I was getting into our market. We were not pioneers. We were not the first crypto exchange. WazirX was not the first crypto exchange. We were probably the last ones in 2018 to launch because there were many before us. And so then the question is, why build one more crypto exchange? So when I looked around all of these crypto exchange that existed, I did a simple market research. I didn't have data. So I just looked at their mobile apps on the Play Store.
00:53:03
Speaker
And the top rated app back then in the crypto exchange space in India was at about 3.4 or 3.5 rating. So now you know there's a gap of about 1.5 stars, which is the gap which the market wants someone to fill, which means there is no quality out there. There's nothing which people are happy about.
00:53:24
Speaker
So that was my first decision that we are going to build another exchange, but we'll make sure that we focus on being the top rated app in the country, which means focusing on quality of your product. The second was, though you did this research, you also need to figure out if the market is ready for it or if the market wants it. So what I did was instead of directly building the product, I announced that I would build this and I opened up a sign up page where you could just put your name and your email and sign up, but there was no product.
00:53:54
Speaker
built. And this sort of went viral. We got 30, 40,000 people signing up in a week's time of announcing this. And that's when we parallelly, we frantically said, let's start and we started building. So it was like a market research for me to understand if there is a need, because I don't want to spend six months building something that people don't want. So once I got this understanding from the market that, A, there was a lack of quality. Second, there was a demand.
00:54:24
Speaker
I got to building and then eventually in March we launched it. But what I did not stop doing was marketing the product. So I think Jain we announced it, the whole of Jain Feb I was still marketing it.
00:54:43
Speaker
So you, you are like an influencer yourself, right? You have like about 84,000 followers on Twitter. So that was your medium of marketing and like generating demand through, through your own. Right. So I had, it was not this huge, it was less. I don't remember, but three years ago, I had this following initial set of people who, because I used to tweet about decentralization, cryptocurrencies and all. So I built a sort of a following.
00:55:12
Speaker
So that helped me initially push it out and reach the right kind of users. But I think that was also a conscious effort. So that was the third part. The third part was because this is a financial sector, it is not regulated and you have a lot of bad actors as well because there is no regulation. The way that people will trust you is if you come in front of them.
00:55:39
Speaker
So no startup founder in the crypto sector was in front of people back then. So I said, I want to be the face. I want to be in front of people because people will trust people. Ultimately, it's not about product brand. If I meet you in person, I come to you, I will trust you more than any other brand, which is why people reach out to their friends, their near and dear ones to get recommendations on what to do, what to buy,
00:56:06
Speaker
So this was a conscious effort of being in front of people. Even today, I practice that I'm a very vocal founder. I talk about what we are building. I talk about the ecosystem. And I did that because people are not going to trust their money and their wealth into an unknown entity. Especially now, see the banking world, what happens is you have licenses as that trust factor. So you know a bank is licensed. Let's put money.
00:56:30
Speaker
But in our ecosystem, we don't have regulation, though I've been pushing for regulation. But until that comes, you have to be in front of people. You have to tell them you're there as a founder to help them out. So that was the third thing that drove us to such massive success in the initial goal itself. And it's continued ever since. So yeah, that's how we started.
00:56:55
Speaker
did you raise funding before launch or like this was also bootstrapped raise funding as such when we started out and immediately then the banking bank came in after three weeks of launch so i tell my i tell the importance of going to market fast because if we hadn't launched and there was a banking when we might have never launched
00:57:20
Speaker
You know, because because you're like, then do we need to spend time on uncertain future or do we take some other sector? So so why we because we launched, we were there and we said, let's tackle it and we built. But again, that became an opportunity. So while these things existed, I what I realized after launching was people are really, really lazy when it comes to changing their financial software.
00:57:49
Speaker
you know, you don't change a bank account, even if someone gives you a more rate of interest, you won't simply change your bank. So when this banking bank came, there was no way for people to use existing exchanges. And we became the first one to immediately build a solution where we built up peer to peer way for people to buy and sell. So we were not the bank banking, we were not getting your deposits, you could directly transfer the money from your bank account to the seller, which is one more person on somewhere in India.
00:58:18
Speaker
And that person would transfer the crypto to you. And what happened is everyone flocked from the other exchanges, which were not the process that apposes and withdraws to us. So this we sweeped and we made adversity into an opportunity. And we could do it because we were new. You know, there was no baggage. There was not like a hundred thousand people using us. So we could quickly change.
00:58:43
Speaker
Today I am afraid I don't know. We'll have to anticipate and we'll keep start building really fast because once you reach a stage it's very hard to build new software because there are so many use edge cases that can happen. So you have to build it, test it, retest it and then launch it. But back then we took advantage of being new to drive the market towards us.
00:59:07
Speaker
Okay, that's amazing. So originally, what was it like? Like somebody would pay WazirX and then WazirX would further buy the Bitcoins from the open market. That was how you launched them. When you say originally, you mean before the ban? Yeah, so before the ban, we, even today, we are a simple platform where you, let's say, has a Bitcoin to sell.
00:59:32
Speaker
And Nistrel has X rupees to buy that Bitcoin. So you will put a sell order, and I will put a buy order. If the rates match, it will automatically execute. And the INR will transfer from Nistrel's account to your account, and from your Bitcoin will transfer to Nistrel's. All of this within BuzzyNex. It's happening within BuzzyNex. So we do this automatically for you. So that's how the system works.
01:00:01
Speaker
And this INAR transfer would happen from bank to bank, like from Akshay's bank, it will go to Waziraksa's bank and then from Waziraksa's bank. But now when the ban happened, we did not have a bank account. So what we did is we said when NISTL is selling a Bitcoin, we can custody the Bitcoin as an exchange because there was no law on that. So we would lock NISTL's Bitcoin.
01:00:29
Speaker
And then we will ask Akshay to send the money directly to Nishel's bank account. And once Nishel gets it, we will say yes to Wazirak. So Wazirak will transfer the Bitcoin to Akshay's Wazirak's wallet. So we were the first in India to build that. And with the banking bank, this was the only way where you can transact in buying and selling cryptocurrency.
01:00:53
Speaker
And how are you earning from this? Like you would charge a percentage commission. We kept it free because this is the entry and exit point. But once you buy Bitcoin, what happens is you can then trade it for other cryptocurrency. So you can sell your Bitcoin to buy Ethereum. And that's a crypto to crypto transaction only. So that used to happen on our exchange and there we used to charge you. We still charge you anywhere from 0.2% to 0.1% of your total transaction.
01:01:35
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you also like underwent an acquisition.
Acquisition by Binance and Lessons Learned
01:01:43
Speaker
Tell me about that. Okay. Before we come to that, what is behind the name? So I've been, I've been fascinated with just for a long time. And I was just trying to figure out a way to provide, see, this is trading and trading. What happens is you need to make the best moves to make money in the market.
01:01:47
Speaker
Okay, okay. And that you will earn in Bitcoin, like your revenue is in Bitcoin.
01:02:04
Speaker
And in Chairs, the Queen piece is one that can make all the moves. So that was the idea behind the new Vazil. And X is for Exchange. So we want to provide you that software, which is like the Queen piece of Chairs. So you can make whatever moves you want and win. Okay, nice, nice, okay. And tell me about the acquisition. So this was 2019.
01:02:32
Speaker
and banking ban was still in effect and the ecosystem in India was not able to grow as such and there was this company called Binance which has been growing really rapidly globally.
01:02:52
Speaker
So where is a distributed company? They don't have any headquarters. They've been distributed right from day one. And I think it's the nature of crypto and the nature of regulation that has forced them to be a distributed company from day one. So they don't have any headquarters as such. So when I looked at their growth, and when I looked at the Indian ecosystem, I'm probably one of those top guys right now in India in the crypto space.
01:03:20
Speaker
which means I'm limited in finding the right mentors, the right kind of people who will help me because this is a new technology, not enough expertise has been built on this. So I found it necessary to find someone and see my objective always more than anything is how do I keep growing more than what I grew last year?
01:03:42
Speaker
That's the single focus I always have personally as well. My goal is to do better than what I did last year. I'm not competing with others. I'm not feeling what I did that much, but at times I read articles about 25 year olds becoming billionaires and I say what a failure I am. But ultimately I think
01:03:59
Speaker
That's just a temporary thing, then I forget. I think each one of us has to better ourselves. That's the best thing that we could do to ourselves. So when I looked at 2019, I said I need to grow faster and I could not see enough mentor expertise or anything in the country. And Binance happened to be that company, so I reached out to them.
01:04:23
Speaker
Or I think they reached out, I don't know, something happened. But I was looking for funds first, because you obviously need capital. And when I started talking to them, I realized I could take their money. But then that money I could raise from anyone, anyone could have, you know, usually second time, raising money.
01:04:41
Speaker
or an idea that works. But when I started talking to them, I realized the insights, the kind of company they're building, the growth they've been able to achieve. I will never get that with just the money. So I put it to them that, you know what, instead of just funding, I think you guys should acquire it. And then the direction went in that direction, and that's how we got this deal done. And I think it's worked beautifully. We've grown over 10x after we got acquired, because I've been able to learn from that.
01:05:11
Speaker
And there's a lot to learn. The exposure they have globally in the crypto ecosystem and the way they work, take the company which has grown from zero to a billion dollars in two years. And I'm talking about billion dollars in revenue. I'm not talking about some valuation that's based on a company. This is hard money that they made in just two years. When we were getting acquired, I think they were around 400, 500 people. Today they are 1200 or 1500 people in just one and a half year.
01:05:42
Speaker
And this is like a pure distributed company. By the way, in the market, they are the ones who deliver and who are faster than every other startup, even now. So the way they work, they are even not just distributed, they are decentralized internally. And that learning is amazing. They don't have to wait for orders. They take their decisions. Teams take their decisions, they move ahead.
01:06:10
Speaker
It's beautifully built. I mean, you have to be inside to learn and apply to your own company, which is what I've been doing. And I think I'm glad I would pay whatever money. Out here, I took the money, but I think I would pay money to experience and know how such rapid scaling works. It's crazy.
Advice on Bitcoin Investment
01:06:34
Speaker
So what is your likely top line going to be this year? I can't disclose that, but I think if you do the math, like for example, last month in January, and there's a public data I'm telling, we made a billion dollars in trading volume. So and our fees is from 0.1 to 0.2%. So you can just do some math, you'll understand. But yeah, last month was really amazing.
01:07:01
Speaker
We've grown really fast. And I think this is still the initial date of the market. Again, there is a lot of, I would say, uncertainty, because it's not regulated. There's this bill looming on everyone's head, saying India will ban crypto. So there's that. So, yeah, I might be calm, but there's a storm brewing behind us. So, you know, I think, but that's, that's, you have to accept it. You can't fight.
01:07:33
Speaker
OK, so my last set of questions, and these are questions which are coming from me personally, like, you know, I hesitate to put money in Bitcoin because every time I think I should, then I think, wow, this is the current price and oh, it used to be this last year and it's like.
01:07:49
Speaker
two weeks of last year and i think it's too expensive now so you know what do you think about that and i'm sure a lot of people would be feeling this week and it's overpriced now i should have bought it last year now there's no use it's overpriced if you're looking at short term games and may not be a good idea definitely because in the short term what happens with bitcoin is the market does not know how to price it
01:08:14
Speaker
It's just so difficult. You have never had a asset which is globally too accessible Like like even gold and all it's been there for so many years and it's already raised so many people But here there is Bitcoin which suddenly what happens is for all you know tomorrow someone might think Elon must change his bio to bash Bitcoin and suddenly 41 million people got to know about Now if he changes by to gold everyone would be like we know gold
01:08:42
Speaker
So, you know, it's in that price discovery range because new people are coming in in large numbers. So the short term fluctuations cannot be predicted. But I'll give you data of the last 10 years. So what has happened to Bitcoin in the last 10 years is in a three year period, I think three or four year period, no one has ever lost money, which means if you buy Bitcoin today and you keep it for three to four years, you not only have you lost, not lost money, you have also gained more than any other investment.
01:09:12
Speaker
So so let's take the example of twenty seventeen when you know this question that you're asking today in twenty seventeen everyone was asking the peak was around twenty thousand dollars the worst time to buy Bitcoin in twenty seventeen was twenty thousand dollars in three years today it has it crossed forty thousand dollars right now tell me an investment that would have doubled your money in three years that's the worst that could have happened the worst that happened to people in twenty seventeen if they just
01:09:41
Speaker
forgot about it for three to four years is they doubled their money. Okay, having said all of this, don't put all of your money because ultimately, this is this is a new technology. Okay. And, you know, history shows you that technology really evolves rapidly does not care about what exists, it always disrupts. So we don't know what will happen. But I believe that Bitcoin has been around for 10 years has shown a strong, I would say,
01:10:09
Speaker
willingness to be ingrained into people's lives. So maybe that is going to remain the same and keep growing. But yeah, that's a disclaimer I would like to put. Just put what you think is a good way to diversify your investment. Don't go hauling. And that's again, that is capital. You want to go hauling, you go hauling.
01:10:35
Speaker
So, did you become a crypto believer after listening to Nishchal? If yes, then download the Wazirix app and put in some money in bitcoins. Trust us, your dran kids will thank you for it.
01:10:50
Speaker
If you like the Founder Thesis Podcast, then do check out our other shows on subjects like Marketing, Technology, Career Advice, Books and Drama. Visit thebotium.in that is T-H-E-P-O-D-I-U-N dot I-N for a complete list of all our shows.