Looking to breach the all lucrative Indian market ecosystem, the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Inc has announced to the onboard former head of Snap India, Durgesh Kaushik is the new head in emerging markets.
“We're excited to confirm that Durgesh Kaushik will be joining Coinbase on May 9 as our senior director for market expansion. His appointment to this global leadership role is an important step toward our entry in India, as well as our mission to increase economic freedom around the world,” said Nana Murugesan, vice president, international, business development and partnerships, in a statement.
Snap has witnessed a huge jump in its user base in India with daily active users growth up 150% year-on-year. The company at present has 100 million monthly active users.
According to Coinbase Inc, Durgesh is joining to scale operations in India and also supports Coinbase's entry into other markets in the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.
“We look forward to announcing more updates over the coming weeks and months – including our new regional managing director hire for India and South Asia – as we continue to bring the potential of blockchain and web3 to the people of India,” Murugesan added.
Coinbase has plans to triple its employee base in India to 1,000 and continue investing in web3 startups, its co-founder Brain Armstrong had announced on April 4. Its corporate venture arm Coinbase Ventures has invested $150 million in Indian web3 startups including CoinDCX and CoinSwitch Kuber.
Coinbase launched its trading services in India on April 7, amid an uncertain regulatory environment in the country. The company had to halt trading services in India three days later amid an informal crackdown from the National Payments Corporation of India on crypto exchanges using Unified Payments Interface as a method to buy crypto in India.
