I am an Indian as well. I would love to see this proposal go ahead and volunteer to help in any capacity.
@martinvol WazirX is the biggest exchange with most liquidity for INR listed against the tokens you mentioned with a big market share. CoinDCX is second most liquid exchange with Zebpay, Unocoin and Bitbns following in descending order of liquidity.
I would also like to shed some light on implications of the 1% TDS (tax deducted at source) applicable for crypto transactions effective from July 1st. It is intentionally designed to discourage speculative behavior but the rate is high even for genuine traders/ investors. This is worrying as it could lead to a significant drop in the number of transactions, affecting liquidity.
Lobbying efforts are underway and the govt is consulting with stakeholders in the industry to plan the way forward. I would imagine Celo would have a case to make in these conversations from the context of particularly how Celo can create the conditions for prosperity for everyone. It aligns perfectly with India’s commitment towards achieving SDGs and NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions).
Is anybody engaging with the govt from Celo yet or is that something that needs to get started? It would be great to have someone actively engage with the govt while consultations are ongoing and possibly propose exploring Celo’s CBDC infrastructure for India’s CBDC.
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Following up here to get input on from the community on the recent events in India surrounding the crypto community - specifically the banks refusing to transmit funds to crypto exchanges.
How can we enable DeFi/Payment/etc. use cases with these limitations within the market? That seems to be the one of the main gating factor today to driving crypto transactions for the masses in this market.
Please share any and all feedback - trying to see how on/off ramps work for a possible cINR stablecoin.
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I believe the direct bank transfers to the exchanges are still working. The main issue is with the payments being suspended via UPI (Unified Payment Interface) - India’s digital payments platform which works with all banks and is the underlying technology for Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm and other fintech applications.
This could be a temporary stance taken by NPCI - the organisation which operates under Reserve Bank of India’s guidelines. They had done this once previously as well and the supreme court had to intervene to reverse the ban. However some exchanges like WazirX and Binance operated and still do with a P2P system and manual bank transfers. The article highlights the approach WazirX (India’s biggest exchange) took to circumvent the temporary ban with a P2P system.
There are tradeoffs with using the P2P system because the user experience isn’t great and might be a bit complicated for a new user to navigate through it. However it is censorship resistant and works pretty well for Binance and WazirX.
Celo have a few options on how to tackle the issue with banks:
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Continue with current on/off ramps via partners like Ramp Network who support debit card payments and apple pay currently. They plan to support UPI and Google Pay soon. However I’m not sure if UPI integration will be successful at this point and also timeline is not clear.
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Work with NPCI to allow direct UPI integration with Valora. This would have a seamless user experience with Celo ecosystem
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Make a native P2P system which would work for other countries as well like Binance or Local BItcoins. Pros of this is zero fees and censorship resistance. Cons are bad user experience and people falling prey to scams. This would also be resource intensive
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Work with exchanges like Binance and WazirX to provide cINR option to trade with INR on their P2P and other payment methods.
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Thanks for sharing this.
How do the end user use cases hold up with these changes? (e.g. using crypto/stablecoins with merchants?) Apart from P2P there are no clear off-ramps right?
My goal I’m trying to understand is apart from P2P, how would users use cINR to transact in addition to just holding? They may not in this climate but looking to see if this exists.
The only clear off ramp other than P2P is bank transfer. The banks are not supporting debit and credit cards either. The exchanges are scrambling to find a seamless payments solution with UPI based transactions being blocked and payment gateways not cooperating due to RBI’s reservations on crypto.
India has a pretty mature payments ecosystem built around UPI. To give you some context here are some numbers - UPI most preferred payment mode among consumers with 56% share: study | Business Standard News, UPI transactions likely to touch Rs 100 trillion soon: Shaktikanta Das | Business Standard News.
I would say it’s kind of hard to penetrate the market for merchant payments without a huge marketing campaign and working closely with govt. It would be wiser to focus on use cases which can be possible uniquely through crypto and Celo’s ecosystem such as remittances, lending/borrowing, UBI, other DeFi applications, Climate Finance and mainly acting as a funnel to support impact projects in the country. The immediate use case with most adoption would likely be cINR being used to interface with the wider crypto ecosystem when exchanges offer cINR/INR pairs for on/off ramps.
Hi, I’d love to support this proposal too! From impactMarket’s perspective, if users had the choice for a more local stablecoin it would allow them even more agency and familiarity. I’m certain this is the case for our 4000+ users in India, cINR would be very helpful.
Looking forward to exploring the steps towards this 
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I wanted to quickly provide an update on my current thought process regarding this proposal.
I am reconsidering whether to proceed with the on-chain proposal given the current bear market scenario. Added with the regulatory challenges with UPI not being supported, it would be wiser to use Celo’s resources to build new primitives and infrastructure instead of a marketing and growth campaign as @rene_celo nicely wrote here.
Work can still continue on the groundwork required for a successful launch, it will be done by voluntary contributions instead of through a grant. The process will be slow but I’d like to keep the ball rolling.
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I think the trading struggles the cREAL coin facing right now can also be very instructive in planning future coin launches. See here. Discord
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I strongly support the cINR idea. It can take Celo much closer to the mobile first Indian audience, as USD, and pegging is a complex thing to pitch on top of Defi
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Hi all! I wanted to revive this proposal and get a pulse on what the community thinks is the best way forward.
The current situation and my thoughts on it:
Context:
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India’s position on whether crypto is legal or not has not been completely clear since it imposed stiff taxes in 2022 but didn’t declare crypto as being legal. The question of legality will come only if something is declared illegal. Crypto assets are not illegal in this country," Seth explained, becoming the second official to give clarity on the matter.
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India is working with IMF and G20 countries to prioritise crypto regulation and shape policy at a global level with current G-20 presidency.
Making a case for proceeding with the proposal:
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cINR will be an important money lego for Celo to drive innovation for prosperity and regeneration in the country.
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India is home to a huge pool of web3 talent and cINR would attract a lot of them to Celo’s ecosystem.
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The use cases mentioned earlier in this thread still apply and there is considerable interest in this proposal from various projects such as @Shaun of Bitssa, @Avina of Impact Market, @Chitty and @lopeselio from Celo India DAO, to name a few. I am also involved in building ReFi India and I foresee many ReFi projects emerging from India using cINR.
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From my conversation with others in the community, I understood that listing cINR on centralised exchanges both foreign (Binance) and local (WazirX, Coin DCX) would be very challenging and requires a lot of resources. Hence I believe building utility through on the ground projects and use cases would be a better strategy here, different to the case in Brazil I believe.
High Level Growth Strategy:
- Introduce cINR and integrate with relevant dApps in Valora.
- Provide liquidity with CELO, cStables (mainly cUSD) and token projects with significant activity in India like Impact Market, Plastiks
- Grow utility by integrating with apps like Bidali, Flywallet, etc. Also pay out for grants and projects in India with cINR.
- Off ramps with Bitssa and others.
- Show real world impact and build a case for friendlier regulations towards social and environmental causes.
I am confident that cINR will massively help advance Celo’s mission and spur growth of the ecosystem in India. It would also place Celo in a unique position to leverage the developer ecosystem and encourage more mobile first dApps to be built for local use cases.
Would appreciate any questions, thoughts and feedback on the proposal.
cc @nimittank @Patrick @Pinotio.com @viral-sangani @martinvol @MilaRioja
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Hi @gvish ! Excited to see you energize this thread. @0xj4an-work Is also working hard to get the cCOP proposal voted, up and running.
I am particularly of the belief that local stables are relevant for the growth of the community and the ecosystem. Sure it’s no easy task to 1) draft the proposal; 2) develop technical aspects; 3) have partners willing and delivering necessary integrations; 4) have the community ready to vote, embrace and use – just to name a few of the challenges. However, cReal launching for instance has already proved (IMHO) how relevant such real world use cases are. One example here + the adoption on T0 by several partners (link further below).
Just wanted to comment on this:
From my conversation with others in the community, I understood that listing cINR on centralised exchanges both foreign (Binance) and local (WazirX, Coin DCX) would be very challenging and requires a lot of resources. Hence I believe building utility through on the ground projects and use cases would be a better strategy here, different to the case in Brazil I believe.
In Brazil on T0 both exchanges (national and international) listed the asset, and also DeFi dApps/wallets that allowed for real world use cases (e.g. buying groceries) integrated. So the approach and acceptance was rather comprehensive (some info here).
From a technical and adoption standpoint, listing on exchanges (AFAIC) is a relevant part of the equation. If you and @0xj4an-work like the idea I am happy to join a brainstorm session (or sessions) to share the experience here (and maybe get a community “cStables launch” toolkit up and running.
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Fascinated to see cReal being welcomed into Brazil’s existing payments infrastructure, congrats @edlovecrypto! This is exactly the kind of inroads we would like to make into Indian payments system. UPI is the equivalent of PIX in India. There has been a shadow ban on crypto exchanges, preventing them to use UPI and integrating with crypto. Although bank transfers work, it’s not a smooth experience.
Until this situation changes, how can we still build the ecosystem in India?
Short term - Build real world use cases, integrate with DeFi, ReFi dApps and wallets
Long term - Build a case for integrating with CBDC and take it to the right people showing real world impact. I think that would be the end game. It would also be better to use resources there than going through exchanges (imho).
I have spoken to folks who work with exchanges and this was the feedback I received. Curious to know if there is anyone at Celo leading ecosystem growth in Asia like you do in LatAm. Would be good to know their point of view as well.
Another thing to highlight - currently cUSD is listed only on one exchange in India viz. CoinDCX. The top 2 exchanges Binance and WazirX don’t have it. Even if we work with the exchanges, there is no guarantee of success. There is a lot of ground to cover for Celo in general but I don’t want to wait for that to let innovation happen on cINR.
I really admire Brazil govt on leading the way for other countries to see crypto in a different light. At the G20 meetings this year, I hope the Brazil representatives make a case for integrating with crypto and change the perception of India’s regulators to an extent.
cStables launch toolkit seems exciting, happy to brainstorm on this and devise a strategy for a successful launch. Looking forward to figure out the next steps!
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TY for your words. LatAm is ready for crypto (and for celo) and I see some similarities to India. Hence why I wanted to touch base with you. You might also like to know we closed and delivered a Hackathon with the Ministry of Economics of Brazil to experiment with tokenizing USD400billion in public assets, including buildings, forests, beaches (…). It was an open source hackathon and the first time they engaged in such initiatives. In two weeks, public officials taught the population about their work, then we taught how to code. Almost 500 people enrolled and >25 projects were delivered in a rather tight time-frame. 19 (if not mistaken) received prizes. Here is the hacker earth website where you can find the learning workshops and also watch the pitches (sorry Portuguese only!) and the government announcing the closing and success of the learning activity.
As for APAC region you might want to connect to @banktheworld !
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Wonderful to know about the tokenization initiative of public assets, Brazil is really setting the tone for us to follow for sure. Amazing work done so far, hopefully we can replicate that in other regions.
Thank you for the APAC connect, will touch base with @banktheworld soon.
DMing you to check on your availability for a meeting to discuss strategy and next steps.
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Lets do this @gvish . We have a lot to accomplish together
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Looking forward to seeing cINR in reality. 
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Indeed @MilaRioja 
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Full support here @gvish
Totally agree on this! Observed some projects from the LATAM hackathon, and things like these would eventually lead to mass adoption
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