Cryptocurrencies may or may not be allowed in India in the future,
but angel investor and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, one of its
most vocal proponents, has successfully demonstrated its power in
raising funds from different parts of the world and transferring them in
hours, to help India fight the deadly second wave of Coronavirus. Srinivasan
has also used Twitter's RT (Retweet) function to great effect, using it
to raise awareness and get people to pitch in. For instance, he tweeted
that for every RT, he will donate another $50, up to $100,000, to help
fight Covid in India.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik
Buterin, top executives of Coinbase, NotionHQ, and HubSpot have also
contributed. How will the donations be converted into fiat where will
they be used?Edited excerpts of a conversation that happened on Twitter
between Balaji Srinivasan and Moneycontrol's Chandra R Srikanth:
Can
you take us through how the global crypto community has come together
to mobilize Covid relief for India? How can this be amplified?
Balaji:
Sandeep Nailwal is the cofounder of Polygon, which is India’s first
crypto unicorn and which I’m an investor in. He led the charge, setting
up a crypto address and taking on the regulatory and accounting
responsibilities. Critically, a new crypto address can be set up in
seconds; rather than days (or weeks) for an in-person bank account. I
retweeted it and then Vitalik Buterin did. We donated and encouraged
others to also donate.
I read posts on how a million dollars was
raised in just half a day in crypto, something that would have taken a
couple of days at least if one were to use non-crypto networks....
Balaji: Crypto allowed us to set up an address in
seconds and raise millions in hours from people in dozens of countries,
with fully transparent public accounting of all funds in the blockchain.
That’s just not possible with the traditional financial system, and
indeed illustrates many of the concepts I’ve been mentioning in my
articles.
How will this be converted into fiat money here, do you anticipate any hurdles there?
Balaji: I
believe it is being done with Indian crypto exchanges. I understand
Sandeep Nailwal is working with skilled volunteer accountants and the
reputable ACT fund.
In terms of disbursals, are there specific
causes you will use this for or will it be used directly to directly
procure critical supplies from China,US etc
Balaji:
Sandeep Nailwal and his colleagues are helping with directing the funds
locally; I am just organizing donations. In addition to Vitalik
Buterin, other global crypto people have joined in including Surojit
Chatterjee (CPO of Coinbase) and Eric Meltzer (early crypto investor).
Has this also helped in demonstrating how crypto can help Indian businesses in the long run?
Balaji:
The immediate issue is to solve the urgent and important problem of
getting India past COVID-19 and fully vaccinated. The long-term issue is
to solve the less-urgent but still important problem of rebuilding the
economy after the stresses of COVID. It is here that the global crypto
community could help in a different way, by investing in India, and
helping with the economic recovery, as detailed in some of my articles
What does the Govt need to do to enable this going forward?
Balaji: The
government should embrace crypto as a way for India to (a) protect
Indian national security against de-platforming by American and Chinese
tech companies and (b) rebuild the economy after COVID. Crypto is like
the combination of economic liberalization and the internet, the two
most potent forces since 1991 for Indian GDP growth. To have a chance of
getting back on track to the $5T economy target for 2025, India needs
to embrace the $2T-and-growing-fast crypto-economy.
