Coinbase Faltering On ‘Audacious’ India Strategy: Crypto Experts

From suggesting a legal move against RBI in a tweet to calling out the government’s “subtle pressure” on exchanges, Coinbase Global Inc COIN CEO Brian Armstrong has been quite outspoken about India’s clampdown on cryptocurrency. But industry experts don’t think it’s the right move if the company wants to do business in India.

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What Happened: Multiple sources from the cryptocurrency industry and the government have told CoinDesk that Coinbase’s communications strategy regarding India may not be the right approach.

“What Coinbase is doing is unrelenting and audacious, one after the other, and to most, it appears to be a mistake,” an industry source told CoinDesk.

Another longtime financial services veteran reportedly said Coinbase’s communication strategy reflected their ignorance of “how to do business in India.” 

Why It Matters: Last month, Coinbase had to shutter its India business, days after it said it would allow Indians to buy Bitcoin BTC/USD, Dogecoin DOGE/USD, and Ethereum ETH/USD using the UPI payments system. 

The company later blamed India’s central bank for putting “informal pressure” and called its act of shadow banning UPI a violation of India’s top court ruling.

Another source who holds close ties to the country’s financial institutions reportedly said, “What Armstrong and Coinbase don’t get is that in India, [the] RBI is the all-mighty in the financial world … you can’t just come in and do whatever the hell you want, and not expect backlash.”

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das in a recent media interview said he would not comment on Armstrong’s allegations.

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, Coinbase shares closed 4.02% higher at $69.87 on Thursday. Bitcoin was down 2.33% at $28,879.30 in the last 24 hours, while Ethereum and Dogecoin lost 8.31% and 3.90%, respectively.