By Nupur Anand

MUMBAI (Reuters – The Indian virtual currency exchange Coinstore, based in Singapore, has started operations at a time that the Indian government is preparing legislation which will ban all private cryptocurrencies.

According to its management, Coinstore launched its app and web platform, and has plans for branches in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore. These will serve as the base of its future growth in India.

Charles Tan from Coinstore’s marketing department told Reuters, “With almost a quarter (of our total active users) coming from India it was logical for us to extend into the market.”

When Tan was asked why Coinstore launched India in spite of the impending crackdown on cryptocurrency, Tan replied: “There were policy flip-flops. But we hope things will be positive. We are optimistic that India’s government will create a safe framework for crypto currencies.”

Two sources revealed to Reuters that the New Delhi government plans to prohibit cryptocurrency trading by imposing heavy capital gains taxes.

According to the legislative agenda that will be presented to the Winter Session, which is due to begin later in the month, it has stated that certain cryptocurrency are not allowed to promote the technology or its uses.

Tan stated that Coinstore intends to hire approximately 100 Indian employees and invest $20 million in marketing, development and hiring of crypto-related services and products for India.

Coinstore follows CrossTower, which opened its Indian unit in September.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency, is more than twice as expensive since this year. This has attracted a lot of Indian investors.

The industry estimate is that there are between 15 million and 20,000,000 crypto investors in India. Their total crypto holdings amount to around 400 billion rupees (or $5.33 billion).

Tan reports that Coinstore plans to grow into Japan, Korea and Indonesia, as well as Vietnam.

($1 equals 75.0400 Indian rupees).