Crypto-Friendly Fantasy Sports Startup EarnU Forays Into India

Crypto-friendly fantasy sports startup EarnU has entered the Indian market, ahead of the Indian Premier League 2022. It provides play-to-earn experience to the audience across various sports and esports on the basis of prediction games.

The startup allows users to earn crypto rewards for correct predictions on the major sports and esports. The game is free for BetU token holders to play, as per a statement.

Users can hold BetU tokens that cannot be lost, and enter weekly rounds on the platform under any sport of their choice. The rounds begin and end every Tuesday. 

The users receive points to make predictions on the platform. If they make the right predictions they earn points that are further converted into BetU tokens.

Founded in 2021 by Paul Rogash, EarnU is a platform by BetU ICO Corp. It is an amalgamation of cryptocurrency and fantasy sports.

Users can conveniently withdraw their earnings as BetU tokens or swap it for Ether (ETH), Binance (BNB) or Tether (USDT) and further withdraw earnings via any of these cryptocurrencies.                    

“The Indian audience is passionate about a lot of sports and esports. In recent times the acceptance towards crypto has increased multifold. Therefore, it makes complete sense for us to offer a new age predict-to-earn platform in the market that is a combination of the two rising interests among users,” said Paul Rogash, CEO and founder, EarnU. 

Furthermore, users are already familiar with the concept of fantasy sports, and are participating actively in every league with the Indian fantasy sports market alone expected to touch $2.5 Bn in 2022, Rogash added.

The EarnU platform has launched sports such as football, soccer, basketball, cricket, MMA, tennis, rugby etc. It also offers CS:GO, Dota2, League of Legends among others under the esports category.

Meanwhile, the Indian Premier League 2022 will begin from March 26 to May 29. The announcement was made after a meeting of the Board of Control for Cricket in India officials with the Governing Council members on March 24, 2022.

Major Announcements On Crypto This Year

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had already proposed a 30% tax on income from crypto and 1% TDS on crypto assets’ transactions in her Budget Speech in February 2022.

While some of the crypto founders welcomed the move, there were some who wanted to reduce the crypto tax from 30% to 18% and TDS to 0.1-0.5%.

On March 21, 2022, the central government, trying to bring more clarity to the Finance Bill 2022, announced:

• While calculating 30% crypto loss from one crypto asset will not be counted against the income from other crypto assets

• The cost incurred to the setting up of infrastructure will not be counted as the cost of acquisition while taxing income from crypto mining

While the Centre has already imposed TDS on crypto transactions and tax on income from crypto, the GST Council is now working on classifying cryptocurrency as goods or services to bring it under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law; in turn, planning to levy on the entire value of transactions.

The decision is expected to be taken during the 47th GST Council Meeting. The meet will take place at the end of March or beginning of April 2022.

While the GST slabs have not been defined for crypto so far, the crypto entities are currently paying 18% GST on the services they provide.