Bitcoins are making inroads in India as a mode of payment. India currently has around 400,000 bitcoin enthusiasts, with 100,000 of them actually owning the currency. With increasing ease of using them for purchases through mobile apps, bitcoins are quickly transitioning from being trading units to shopping currency.

Just a few years ago, bitcoin owners in the country had few avenues for using the currency. Since the crypto-currency is technology driven, sellers needed to have platforms to accept it. This is where things have changed in recent times. Unocoin, an Indian bitcoin trading platform, launched a 'merchant gateway' which enables business entities to accept bitcoins.

Unocoin provides their valued customers a safe platform to store, buy, sell, send and receive bitcoins

This has encouraged several sellers to sign up and accept bitcoins from their customers. Bitcoin is the world’s first open-source, decentralized digital currency and payment network that is changing the world of finance.

Building Unocoin
It all began in 2013 where a few members met at the India Bitcoin meet-up group (now goes by the name "India Bitcoin Blockchain") aiming to take Bitcoin to the masses. Since then, CoinMonk Ventures facilitated and hosted India's first Global Bitcoin Conference in December 2013 where Unocoin was launched on a trial basis. Trade was open for users with a set buying and selling limits. On 1st Feb 2014, Unocoin went off trial mode into full operations.Throwing light on, Sathvik

Vishwanath, Co-Founder &CEO, Unocoin, speaks, "My bitcoin journey started by being an attendee then host of India Bitcoin meetup group in Bangalore, which now has now more than 2500 members. I eventually founded a company in the name of CoinMonk Ventures Private Limited that aims to bring Bitcoin awareness to the public. This company after being an organizer of the Global Bitcoin Conference in Dec 2013 - the first ever Bitcoin conference in India, has launched a web service called Unocoin.com which emphasizes in providing Bitcoin services that includes storage, buying and selling, thereby advancing and accelerating the pursuit of Bitcoin technology. Since then, Unocoin is evolving rapidly and is bringing the advantage of this technology to the critical masses following strict KYC and AML standards to keep its end to end processes compliant and secure for their clients."In the recent past, Unocoin has expanded its services to provide merchant gateway for online merchants with benefits of no-volatility risk, 0 percent transaction fee and no charge-backs. The company was recently funded by Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels, Digital Currency Group and Ah Ventures and thus helping it to move towards its goal at a faster pace.

Buying & Selling Bitcoins: A Simple Process
In India, 48 percent of the

population still does not have their bank accounts. Most of them belong to rural and remote rural areas for which it becomes more or less unfeasible for industrialized banks to reach out to them. These people have so much to gain through the technology like Bitcoin. Transactions through bitcoin are as simple as sending messages. Bitcoin is being increasingly used in online transactions across the world for purchases and other financial deals.

Well positioned in this landscape, Unocoin allows its verified users to trade, transact, accept and store bitcoins as per their usage. Explaining further, Sathvik says, "When any customer visits the website to register, we request them to provide their documents to get the account verified. Once the account is verified, one can buy and sell 20 BTC/ day with no limits on sending and receiving BTC."

Subjected to continual improvement and committed to take care of any functionality and security issues once identified, Unocoin provides their valued customers a safe platform to store, buy, sell, send and receive bitcoins.

The Journey
Since its inception, it has been an eventful journey for team Unocoin. "India is the perfect home for Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Over the coming months and years, we’ll continue to build practical, useful features and tools on top of Bitcoin", concludes Sathvik.
Key Management:
Sathvik Vishwanath, Co-Founder & CEO
Sathvik has over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience building software systems in the financial and virtual reality industry. He has an MBA in IT and Business from University of Melbourne.
Offices:
Tumkur, Bangalore