Founder and Chief Executive Officer of WazirX, Nischal Shetty, says that cryptocurrency investments have shot up greatly in India since mid-2020. There are two main reasons that could have driven India’s residents to invest in digital tokens.

Shetty believes people adopted crypto assets as they thought it a better fit for trading during the pandemic. Most consumers found themselves sitting at home with nothing to do. Therefore, they put their bank accounts full of savings to good use.

Consumers had a lot of time on their hands during the pandemic to learn and approach cryptocurrency. Whilst staying at home, unable to shop, most people seemed to have landed on the same conclusion — trading on crypto exchanges.

However, the pandemic may not have been the only driving force that pushed users to invest in crypto coins. In May 2020, the Reserve Bank of India slashed interest rates. The rate was set at 4.25%, its lowest since the year 2000.

This decision could have possibly influenced bank account holders to use their savings and invest in crypto instead. WazirX saw massive growth in investors on its platform.

Shetty says that the exchange saw over 1000% growth in the last year alone. More and more users signed onto the exchange. WazirX’s users kept doubling every couple of months or so.

The exchange had about 550,000 users in June but shot up to over a million soon after. Analytics confirms that over 70% of these users are below the age of 34.

Other India-based cryptocurrency exchanges like Unocoin and Zebpay too saw a spur in new users on their exchange in 2020 starting from the end of Q2.