KOCHI: Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has won the fancy of many Malayalis who have been silently investing in it for the past two years .
With the Supreme Court lifting the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ban on such trades, investors and traders hope more Malayalis will jump on the cryptocurrency bandwagon thereby boosting the value of their investments.
Nivin C Joy, who trades in Bitcoin and manages Facebook page Bitcoin Kerala, says cryptocurrency trade is nothing new to Malayalis. “There are two active WhatsApp groups which have Bitcoin traders as members. With the Supreme Court lifting the RBI ban, they now can trade through proper banking channels,” he said.
Though cryptocurrencies rose to fame during 2010, Keralites were hesitant suspecting them to fraud, he said.
Srenjith Nanmanda of Kozhikode, who manages a vlog Cryptotraveller, said it was from 2012 that Keralites started to show more interest in cryptocurrencies.
“All these years, the trade used to take place through third-party platforms wherein we had to pay money to the seller directly. Following the Supreme Court order, the transactions could be done directly between the bank accounts of the buyer and seller,” said Srenjith.