“When I first got involved with Bitcoin in 2011, it was mostly a Western community. It’s been tremendously exciting to see Unocoin help bring this technology into India. ShapeShift is very proud to partner with them for digital asset exchange,” said Erik Voorhees, Founder, ShapeShift.
Unocoin explains that the one thing common among all blockchain assets is that they all run on open mining algorithms. In India, there has been very little interest in alternative blockchain assets due to it being difficult to convert digital assets into bitcoin and INR.
“Many view bitcoin as digital gold and we’re always looking for ways to make it easier for people to get into bitcoin. Many people learn about bitcoin through other crypto currencies and once they do, we’d like to give them an easy way to convert their blockchain assets into bitcoin. In the meantime, we’re keeping a close eye on the open blockchain ecosystem and may or may not introduce deeper integrations in the future,” noted Sunny Ray, Co-founder and President, Unocoin.
Once the altcoin holdings are converted into bitcoin, they can be easily withdrawn to the user’s bank account. By enabling users to convert popular cryptocurrencies into bitcoin and INR, this integration aims to support the blockchain community.
“By being an industry leader, we wanted to provide a solution to the long standing challenge of being able to convert crypto-currencies into bitcoin in India. Unocoin’s Shapeshift integration will enable users to convert their altcoin into bitcoin and then sell it for INR. We expect this to be yet another popular offering,” said Harish B V, Co-Founder and COO, Unocoin.
Also read: Has India opened its doors to Bitcoin yet?
The gripping demonetization move has increased the value of Bitcoin nearly two times its prior levels, pushing its value to new highs in the country. Furthermore, demand for bitcoin is on the rise even globally and this partnership might just drive more interest into the blockchain ecosystem, increasing user adoption for the emerging cryptocurrency space within India.
