How to Buy Bitcoin in India
Highlights
- Coinome allows for Aadhaar backed eKYC
- Coinsecure charges 0.4 percent as fees
- Koinex has a reputation for availability of coins
Over the last 12 months, the price of Bitcoin has been a roller coaster and in India, we've gone from blank stares when talking about cryptocurrencies to interest and demand that's hard to keep up with. There are a number of different Bitcoin exchanges through which you can buy the coins, but international transactions involve a certain amount of uncertainty and delays with regular money transfers themselves. So if you're in India and are looking to buy Bitcoin, you may want to use a local exchange.Buying Bitcoin isn't for the faint of heart though. Economists and others have been expressing doubts for long now about the feasibility of Bitcoin as an investment. There have also been questions raised about the suitability of Bitcoin for the needs of the financial industry. In India, the Income Tax department has been cracking down on cryptocurrency traders, covering Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and more. There's also the fact that the Indian government has said that Bitcoin can't be used as a part of the payments system. Speaking to the nation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reiterated that cryptocurrencies are not legal tenders, saying that their use "as part of the payment system" will be eliminated. However, the minister didn't explicitly mention anything about trading in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Still, if you've done your research and want buy Bitcoins, there are a number of options in India.We started looking at such exchanges one year ago, and many of the exchanges we found at the time to be good options still remain active and have good reports from users. However, we have seen customer feedback on some of them turn sour, and there have been a few new entrants as well, which have received a positive response from most of their users. Here are the ones that sound like good picks in February 2018, based on what consumers are saying, on public forums ranging from Reddit and Quora, discussions on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and by listening to recommendations from people who are actively trading in Bitcoin in India.