After bitcoin carnage, FUD grips India's crypto universe

Mumbai: The Indian crypto universe is in a FUD.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) took over Indian investors in crypto assets on Wednesday as Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable and best-known crypto token, posted its biggest single-day fall in nearly a year.

After Tesla Inc.’s founder Elon Musk said last Thursday that the electric car maker would no longer accept bitcoins as payments, the token fell from its peak of $57,000 last week to about $32,000 at one go.

The volatility came as a shock to investors in the Indian cryptocurrency space, several of whom are new and have never experienced such major volatility in crypto assets. Besides, Indian crypto investors have also been facing regulatory uncertainty as major banks and payment gateways have distanced themselves from crypto exchanges recently.

In fact, domestic crypto exchanges went into a "downtime" on Wednesday, unable to handle heightened trading volumes—basically, with people lining ..

‘Too Soon to Predict Future

"A lot of investor chatter has been around seeing this as a buying opportunity. Many who were waiting on the sidelines for prices to cool are now beginning to take new positions at these levels," said Nischal Shetty, founder, and chief executive officer of WazirX.

Chief executives of Indian crypto exchanges said it was too soon to draw conclusions on Bitcoin’s future and whether the industry overall is in the grip of bears.

In the past week, other global crypto-assets such as Ethereum and Binance's token also plunged by as much as 25% and 33%, respectively. According to Coingecko.com, nearly 50% of the entire crypto sector’s market capitalization has been wiped off between May 13 and May 20.

"On the way down, retail investors have the bad habit of averaging down," said Nithin Kamath, founder, and CEO of online stock brokerage Zerodha, warning crypto users against buying more at lower prices to make up for l ..