India’s Web3 Professionals Interested in Developing Metaverse, Blockchain Gaming: KuCoin CEO

Despite the regulatory uncertainty in times of a bear market, India has continued to grab the attention of global crypto players. In conversation with Gadgets 360, KuCoin's Johnny Lyu has revealed that India's Web3 talent seems to be flocking towards the metaverse and blockchain gaming sector. Developing products in these areas revolve a lot around coding in C++, Golang, JavaScript, Solidity, Python, Ruby, and Java — all of which are required in the blockchain sector.

“With India effectively progressing towards the Web3 space, which is powered by digital engineering, approximately 41 percent of Web3-interested professionals want to work as developers in the space. Over 40 percent of Indian Web3-inclined professionals are more interested in the metaverse, NFT, and blockchain-based gaming for employment, outperforming the global average,” the CEO and co-founder of KuCoin told Gadgets 360.

The Indian government brought cryptocurrency under its tax regime earlier this year. All income churned from crypto transactions are being taxed at 30 percent since April and a 1 percent tax deducted at source (TDS) for crypto transactions has also been live in India since July.

Despite being critical of the imposed taxes, the Indian crypto community has continued investing in the sector.

“We witnessed about 5.6 million new users in the first half of 2022, up to 659 percent growth, and a big amount of these new users were from India. Indian users increased by 1,251 percent compared with the same period last year in 2021,” Lyu noted.

India's crypto activity churned $172 billion (roughly Rs. 13,85,812 crore) in cryptocurrency-related activities from July 2021 through the June of this year, a Chainalysis report released in September claimed.

Companies running in the forefront of the crypto revolution like Coinbase and KuCoin have been scouting for blockchain talent from India.

“As a rapidly growing crypto market, India clearly has huge potential in leading the crypto and blockchain industries. And we will continue to invest and educate the investor community about safe trading practices to improve the ecosystem,” Lyu added.

The cryptocurrency market is considered a highly lucrative one by many newbies. Around 45 percent Millennials and 46 percent of the Gen Z population are approaching cryptocurrencies as a retirement plan in the US.

“In terms of safeguarding investors from ever-increasing cyber threats, we expect some stringent policies and regulations from global lawmakers. Besides this, we hope that there will be more awareness towards safe investments,” Lyu highlighted.