India’s CoinDCX Exchange Appoints Former Amazon Pay Exec Gaurav Arora to Head DeFi Initiatives

CoinDCX, one of India's top crypto exchanges, on Wednesday announced the appointment of Gaurav Arora as the Senior Vice President of CoinDCX Pro. A graduate from IIT Roorkee, Arora will be responsible for heading the crypto exchange's upcoming initiatives aimed at growing the adoption of decentralised finance (DeFi) in India. The move by CoinDCX comes at a time when the Web3 sector has picked up a momentum in-terms of expansion.

Arora, the former Director of Products at Amazon Pay India, has a decade-long industry experience in growing and leading products and businesses.

As part of his newly bagged role at CoinDCX, the IIM-Bengaluru alumnus will work on simplifying the access opportunities for Indians in a digital ecosystem that functions on decentralised economy.

“The world of Web3 and DeFi is in its nascent stages and largely inaccessible by most people due to its complexities. We believe that over the next few years, hundreds of millions of users will be interacting with the decentralised blockchain ecosystem. Our goal is to provide a bridge for these customers to access the opportunities safely and easily in this system,” Arora said while commenting on his appointment at CoinDCX.

The crypto exchange is looking to become one of the early service providers in the Web3 sector in India to help people explore other elements of the industry like NFTs and the metaverse.

Citing a Gartner report, CoinDCX has said that by the year 2026, 25 percent of consumers will spend a minimum of one hour each day on metaverse for work, shopping, education, social or entertainment purposes. This ecosystem will have its own virtual economy enabled by digital currencies and NFTs.

The firm claims to be trying to rid the Web3 sector from the complexities that an average user may encounter while considering a foray into the next phase of the digital world.

“I believe Web3 and blockchain technology will save billions of dollars for the common man and generate powerful income opportunities as crypto has a lot of applications for consumers. Gaurav, with his extensive experience in building consumer-friendly products, will focus on building on the DeFi space which has the potential to financially empower billions,” said Neeraj Khandelwal, Co-founder, CoinDCX, in a press statement.

The company, launched in early 2018, has been finetuning its corporate functioning by bringing in industry veterans on senior level positions.

Earlier this month, the crypto exchange appointed Kiran Vivekananda as the chief of public policy and government affairs. Vivekananda will be working with Indian regulators now that the government is inching closer to formulating the crypto laws that aim to safeguard Indian investors.

In his experience spanning over 20 years, Vivekananda has previously worked with Dream Sports, Uber India, and HCL Infosystems.

In a bid to provide early-stage support to budding blockchain projects in India and around the world, CoinDCX also recently launched its venture investment arm with the plan of investing Rs. 100 crore in the start-up industry.

CoinDCX is the first Indian unicorn (valued over a billion dollars) in the cryptocurrency space. Apart from its recently closed $135 million (roughly Rs. 1,044 crore) Series D funding round led by Pantera and Steadview, the company has previously raised over $100 million (roughly Rs. 760 crore) with Coinbase Ventures and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin-led B Capital as its investors.

The company claims to have over 12.5 million users on its platform.