After Chinese, Indians Most Eager To Jump On The Metaverse Bandwagon: Report

Despite a turbulent year for the overall crypto industry in India last year, it looks like India continues to be optimistic about the nascent Web3.0 space. 

A new survey by crypto publication CoinWire has revealed that a majority of Indians harbour positive feelings about using metaverse daily. 75% of Indians surveyed were willing to adopt metaverse in their daily use, as per the findings. 

“China had the highest, with 78% harbouring positive feelings toward using metaverse daily followed by India at 75%,” the report titled ‘Crypto Report 2022’ noted.

The report also made note of other aspects of the crypto landscape. The document found that India was yet to initiate a process to establish a regulatory framework to govern the crypto industry. However, it also said that the government had set into motion plans to develop anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) regulations for cryptocurrencies. 

On account of ‘travel rule’ and stablecoins for payments, the report said that no such plans have been unveiled by Indian authorities to govern this aspect of the crypto industry. 

Travel rule for cryptos puts the onus on all crypto exchanges to screen and communicate the information of senders and recipients for crypto transactions over a certain monetary threshold to curb money laundering. On the other hand, stablecoins are privately issued digital currencies that are pegged against reference assets like currencies or gold. 

Homegrown Web3.0 startup Polygon was also mentioned in the report. The startup lapped up the eighth biggest funding amount at $450 Mn in the Web3.0 space last year. The report also stated that Polygon invested in as many as 13 Web3.0 gaming startups and made investments in an additional 60 startups in the space in 2022. 

The report drew data from multiple crypto platforms, including Decrypt, Binance, and Crunchbase, among others. The survey also polled more than 10,260 crypto investors across the globe as part of the sample set. Post this, the answers were evaluated to tabulate the results. 

Crypto Space In Choppy Waters?

The overall industry continues to be in the middle of a crypto winter, which has already dried funding and bankrupted big names such as FTX. Back home, the issue is further complicated by non-existent crypto regulations that have made matters worse for retail investors. 

Further, statements from the top brass of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have made users wary of investing in private digital currencies. Recently, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das termed dealings in cryptocurrencies as gambling. On a previous occasion, he had said that the next financial crisis will occur due to private cryptocurrencies.

While crypto space is wading into uncertain waters, other aspects of Web3.0 are witnessing renewed adoption. Products such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and metaverse are being deployed by Indian conglomerates and startups to woo customers. 

The crypto space has seen a big boom in the past few years on the back of a digitally connected young population. Increasing smartphone penetration, cheap mobile data and nascent metaverse-specific products are also helping this burgeoning space in the country bloom. 

A recent report from Deloitte noted that the potential impact of metaverse on India is expected to be in the range of $79 Bn and $148 Bn per year by 2035. The report added that this number could account for 1.3% to 2.4% of the country’s overall gross domestic product (GDP). 

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