Cryptostorm: How India Became Ground Zero of a Financial Revolution

Sundeep Khanna

May 2023 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

The colour of money is changing to crypto. With the regulatory environment struggling to keep up, there has been prolonged ambivalence on the legality of cryptocurrencies. This has led to chaos but has also allowed a few to make unprecedented gains. Like all bubbles, there is a looming threat of a big-bang bust and with stories emerging of people losing lifetimes' savings, there are serious fallouts that should be considered.

Even so, cryptos are an idea whose time has come. That is why no central bank now dares to place a complete and comprehensive ban on them. With bitcoin, which kicked off this revolution, now valued at a trillion dollars and many other virtual currencies worth billions, the genie has left the bottle.

From being agents of chaos, cryptos have gone mainstream and regulators are stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Before reason and rationality dawn, though, there will be ferment. Of the thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence today, only a handful will survive. The ones that don't, will spell ruin for millions of gullible Indians.

This, the first book on the 'cryptostorm' that is sweeping India, reports stories of ordinary people whose lives have been touched and, in some cases, irrevocably changed by the promise and threat of cryptos. The individuals in this book populate a 'new India'. They believe they have seen a way to uplift their lives, unencumbered by governments and regulators. Their voice needs to be heard because it is the sound of tomorrow, which we ignore at our own peril.

About the author

Sundeep Khanna has been a business journalist ever since the first personal computers came into India, and writes regular columns for Money Control and Livemint. His books include The Liberalization Story, a collection of essays on one of the most seminal events in Indian business. He has co-authored Azim Premji: The Man Beyond the Billions, a biography of one of the world's best-known philanthropists.