Unocoin, the Indian crypto exchange and cryptocurrency wallet will now be allowing its users to purchase everyday consumer items using Bitcoin. Rather than a straight purchase as one might do with cash for a product, Unocoin enables users to buy vouchers using the digital coin. These vouchers can then be used to purchase said consumer items. The exchange has put out parameters that allow users to transact with Bitcoin worth Rs 100 to Rs 5,000 to buy the vouchers. The company will feature the brands whose vouchers can be bought, on its mobile app. It will be under the ‘Shop’ section. The app will let cryptocurrency holders buy these vouchers for different cash amounts that are equivalent to the Bitcoin rate.
Once the purchase of the voucher is made the corresponding amount will then be deducted from the user’s crypto wallet in the form of Bitcoin. After that is complete, the voucher code will be forwarded to the customer, which can be used against the corresponding brand to avail the purchase of certain items. This is a path that has been taken before though. Unocoin is not the first of its kind to attempt such a scheme. Before Unocoin, came Zebpay, which partnered with Flipkart to give its customers vouchers for Bitcoin.
It is notable that Unocoin is the first in terms of being an Indian crypto wallet. It was incorporated in 2013 and paved the way for other crypto wallets over time. Unocoin did eventually diversify and undertook the exchange model as well.
Unocoin’s announcement of this new scheme came just two days after CoinDCX ‘s massive funding round. The crypto exchange managed to raise funds of $90 million from its investor Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital amongst others. This brought a big boost to the cryptocurrency ecosystem in India.
In recent times Bitcoin has seen some significant growth and rebounded from its record lows. It was also a major turning point for crypto exchanges in India as CoinDCX became the first Indian Unicorn crypto exchange. On August 11, the crypto coin saw a market price of $46,198.10 on CoinMarketCap. This indicated that the coin was trading up by 0.34 per cent over the last 24 hours. In the same line, Bitcoin was trading up by 22.17 per cent over the course of the last seven days.
Speaking on the growth that Bitcoin has seen, Siddharth Menon, the COO of WazirX said, “Bitcoin managed to close above 200 day moving average which indicates the bulls are returning back, Also the onchain analysis indicates the dip has been bought by long term holders and we are not seeing any profit booking like we saw in 2018 after the top of $19600 on Bitcoin, All the Bitcoins bought during the dip are being held back by the Investors.”
Menon then added, “Bitcoin and the crypto markets are showing strong signs of reversals. Ether the king of the Altcoins is clearly leading the pact to outperform Bitcoin in the past week.”
“After a significant rally over the past few trading sessions, we are starting to witness some consolidations across the crypto markets. Technicals suggest the coming 24 hours could remain volatile for the crypto spectrum,” said Edul Patel, CEO and co-founder of Mudrex.
The total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours was $119.24 billion which points to a 9.36 per cent increase. The global crypto market cap was $1.91 trillion, which was 2.32 per cent up over the last day. The total volume in DeFi was $12.28 billion or 10.30 per cent of the total crypto market volume, for the past 24 hours, at the time of this article. In this scenario, Bitcoin displayed a market dominance of 45.35 per cent or a decline of 0.95 per cent over the day.
