Over the past few months, the Reserve Bank of India has been clamping down on cryptocurrency exchanges. Their most recent actions involve banning any bank accounts that interact with cryptocurrency exchanges.
Indian cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin recently found a loophole that allows them to continue buying and selling cryptocurrencies
To avoid the legislation, Unocoin discovered a solution: ATM’s. ATM’s allow users to deposit or withdraw rupees directly into or out of their Unocoin accounts. Using the ATM, they can buy and sell any of the cryptocurrencies available on Unocoin. This means that users can completely separate their bank accounts from Unocoin. As long as Unocoin has their own bank account, the buying and selling will continue.
Unocoin, founded in 2013, has 120 employees and has processed more than 2 billion rupees of volume between 1.3 million customers. Unocoin announced that they will be launching 30 ATM’s across 3 different cities. In an interview with Bitcoin.com, Unocoin CEO Sathvik Vishwanath revealed that:
The first ATM will be operational in Bangalore tomorrow…In the first phase we plan to deploy 30 machines…The first one is in Bangalore followed by Mumbai and New Delhi in the upcoming week.
He continued:
These ATMs help people to cash in and cash out which was not possible before due to RBI restriction on banks to not provide bank accounts. The gap is now completely filled by these ATMs except that physical access is required to deposit and withdraw money.
Altcoins including ETH, BAT, ZIL, and many others will also be tradeable:
All coins on Unocoin and Unodax can be bought using the money deposited through ATM machines. We presently have 30 coins that can be bought.
This story highlights the anti-fragile nature of cryptocurrency. Although there are ways for governments and physical entities to hinder cryptocurrency’s growth, there is no way to completely block it. As has been shown in countries like China and Venezuela, users will find a way to use cryptocurrencies.
