Crypto
Founders, Builders & Educators: Influential Leaders Shaping India’s Rapidly Growing Cryptocurrency Ecosystem – The Logical Indian
India’s growing cryptocurrency ecosystem has drawn global attention, with the country ranking first in the 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index published by Chainalysis.
The rise reflects increasing retail participation, expanding trading platforms, and a wave of entrepreneurs building exchanges, media outlets, and blockchain infrastructure despite years of regulatory uncertainty. Several founders have emerged as key figures shaping how Indians access information about digital assets and participate in the evolving crypto market.
Here are some of the crypto news and platform founders who have played notable roles in shaping India’s digital asset ecosystem.
Naimish Sanghvi: Founder, Coin Crunch India
Naimish Sanghvi left a corporate role at Deloitte to build something the Indian crypto community desperately needed: reliable, unbiased news.
He launched Coin Crunch India in 2018. The platform quickly became a go-to destination for blockchain news, regulatory updates, and in-depth analysis. At a time when mainstream media either ignored or sensationalized crypto, Coin Crunch filled the gap with verified reporting and clear-headed commentary.
Sanghvi’s focus on consumer protection and transparent journalism has earned him trust among both first-time investors and industry veterans. His work continues to shape how Indians understand and engage with digital assets.
Why he matters: He built India’s most credible crypto news brand at a time when the space had almost none.
Nischal Shetty: Founder, WazirX and Co-Founder, Shardeum
Few names carry as much weight in Indian crypto as Nischal Shetty.
He founded WazirX in 2018 alongside Samir Mhatre and Siddharth Menon. The exchange grew into one of India’s most active crypto trading platforms, boasting over 15 million users. After the RBI issued a banking ban on crypto transactions, Shetty launched the #IndiaWantsCrypto campaign. That campaign sustained public pressure until the Supreme Court declared the ban unconstitutional in 2020.
Shetty is also a Forbes 30 Under 30 alumnus. He later co-founded Shardeum, a Layer 1 blockchain designed for high throughput using dynamic sharding. In 2024, he co-launched Pi42, a crypto-INR futures exchange built to help traders avoid the burden of India’s 1% TDS on crypto transactions.
Why he matters: He fought for the legal right to trade crypto in India. Then he kept building infrastructure for the next decade.
Sumit Gupta: Co-Founder and CEO, CoinDCX
Sumit Gupta co-founded CoinDCX with a clear mission: make crypto accessible and trustworthy for every Indian.
CoinDCX now serves over 16 million registered users and is one of India’s most trusted crypto exchange platforms. Gupta has consistently championed responsible innovation. He advocates for transparent regulation and puts investor education at the center of his platform’s identity.
His commentary on India’s regulatory landscape is widely followed. He approaches market development with a focus on building long-term trust rather than chasing short-term volume.
Why he matters: He helped turn crypto investing into a credible financial activity for millions of mainstream Indian users.
Ashish Sukhadeve: Founder and CEO, Analytics Insight
Ashish Sukhadeve built one of India’s most widely read crypto and emerging tech media platforms through Analytics Insight. While others were busy setting up shops to buy and sell coins, he took a different path. He saw that people didn’t just need a place to trade; they needed to understand what they were actually buying.
He built an influence engine. Analytics Insight today covers crypto, blockchain, AI, fintech, and emerging technologies with a strong global readership. Under his leadership, the platform positioned itself at the intersection of digital assets and future tech, giving crypto coverage a broader economic and innovation context.
What sets Sukhadeve apart is scale and vision. Most platforms focus only on price movements or exchange updates. However, he expanded coverage to include Web3 startups, token ecosystems, enterprise blockchain adoption, regulation shifts, and global market trends. That wider lens helped global readers understand how crypto fits into the larger technology revolution.
Why he matters: He transformed crypto reporting from niche coverage into a mainstream tech intelligence platform. Analytics Insight today is one of the most influential crypto and emerging tech media brands catering to audiences worldwide.
Ashish Singhal: Founder and CEO, CoinSwitch
Ashish Singhal built CoinSwitch around a simple idea: make crypto easy enough for anyone to use.
The platform’s clean interface and beginner-friendly design helped onboard millions of first-time investors. CoinSwitch became India’s second crypto unicorn in 2021, valued at $1.9 billion after a successful Series C round. A Q2 2025 report from CoinSwitch showed that people under 35 now make up roughly 72% of India’s crypto investors, a demographic Singhal helped bring into the space.
He has spent years proving that simplicity is a competitive advantage in a market known for complexity.
Why he matters: He made crypto less intimidating for a generation of new investors in India.
Jaynti Kanani: Co-Founder, Polygon
Jaynti Kanani came from a background in data science and product engineering. That practical foundation shaped everything he built.
He co-founded Polygon, formerly known as Matic Network, to solve one of Ethereum’s most persistent problems: slow speeds and high transaction fees during peak demand. Polygon offered faster and cheaper transactions at scale. Global brands, Web3 developers, and enterprise applications adopted it in large numbers.
Polygon stands as one of India’s most significant contributions to global blockchain infrastructure. The MATIC token surged in value as adoption grew. Kanani’s approach combined deep technical knowledge with a clear understanding of what developers and users actually needed.
Why he matters: He put India on the global blockchain infrastructure map with a product that millions of developers use daily.
Sandeep Nailwal: Co-Founder, Polygon
Sandeep Nailwal co-founded Polygon alongside Kanani and has been one of its most visible public voices.
He has championed blockchain education and community growth with equal energy. Beyond his technical contributions, Nailwal became known internationally for his humanitarian work during the COVID-19 crisis in India. He raised tens of millions of dollars in crypto donations for pandemic relief through the Crypto Relief Fund.
His combination of entrepreneurial execution and public service made him one of the most respected figures in Web3 globally.
Why he matters: He showed that crypto founders could drive both technological impact and meaningful social impact at the same time.
Kashif Raza: Co-Founder, Bitinning
Kashif Raza identified a problem that most crypto founders overlooked: education.
He co-founded Bitinning to teach beginners the fundamentals of crypto without overwhelming them. Through YouTube, community programs, and practical workshops, he breaks down wallet safety, market structure, risk management, and basic blockchain concepts into digestible lessons.
His approach focuses on empowering everyday people to participate in crypto with confidence rather than fear. That mission has made him one of the most trusted educators in India’s crypto community.
Why he matters: He serves the largest and most vulnerable segment of Indian crypto users: the beginners who have no one else to guide them.
Balaji S. Srinivasan: Former CTO, Coinbase (Indian-American)
Balaji Srinivasan is an Indian-American entrepreneur whose influence on global crypto thinking is enormous.
He co-founded 21.co, a Bitcoin startup that evolved into Earn.com. Coinbase acquired Earn.com and appointed Srinivasan as CTO. Before crypto, he co-founded Counsyl, a genomics startup whose DNA screening technology now reaches 3% of all births in the United States.
Srinivasan’s intellectual output on decentralization, network states, and the future of governance has influenced founders and investors worldwide. His prolific writing and podcasting make him one of the most original thinkers to emerge from the Indian tech diaspora.
Why he matters: His ideas about decentralized systems have shaped how a generation of builders thinks about the future of crypto and society.
Naval Ravikant: Co-Founder, AngelList and MetaStable Capital (Indian-American)
Naval Ravikant was born in New Delhi and built a career that bridges Silicon Valley and the blockchain world.
He co-founded AngelList, a platform that transformed how startups connect with angel investors. He made early investments in Uber, Twitter, and Postmates. In 2014, he co-founded MetaStable Capital, a hedge fund focused on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets.
Ravikant’s thinking on wealth, technology, and individual sovereignty has been widely shared through his podcast and writing. He sees blockchain as a tool for financial independence and a challenge to centralized financial systems.
Why he matters: His early belief in Bitcoin and blockchain helped legitimize the space for mainstream investors and tech founders globally.
The Bigger Picture
India now leads the Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index across all subindices, including retail, centralized services, DeFi, and institutional activity. That position reflects the work of founders who built real products, fought for clearer regulation, and educated millions of users over many years.
The next chapter of India’s crypto story will be written by this generation of builders and those they inspire. The founders on this list are not just news sources or exchange operators. They are architects of a financial ecosystem that is still being constructed.
Watching what they build next is the best reason to follow crypto news from India.
North Carolina lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a bill to protect consumers from cryptocurrency kiosk fraud.
House Bill 920, which passed the House with a 115-to-0 vote, aims to regulate an industry that its author claims is unregulated in the state.
“It’s the wild, wild West,” Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, said during a committee discussion on Tuesday. “There is no regulation whatsoever in North Carolina. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”
Lawmakers cited a growing amount of fraud as the reason for the bill. About $389 million in losses were reported last year through cryptocurrency ATMs, a 58% increase from 2024, according to the FBI. The majority of those impacted are 60-plus.
The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration. It seeks to:
- Require licenses for all kiosk operators under the Money Transmissions Act.
- Place operators under the supervision of the Commissioner of Banks.
- Require fraud warnings and transaction receipts for every transaction.
- Require compliance and consumer protection officers that are always available.
It also seeks to place limitations on transactions in an effort to reduce fraud, requiring a $2,000 daily limit for the first 30 days for new customers and a $5,000 daily limit for existing customers, who would qualify after 30 days.
While other states have service fees between 20% and 30%, Jackson suggests putting a cap at 14%.
State Rep. Tim Longest, D-Wake, expressed concern about having the kiosks at all in the state. He said the bill’s protections could be stronger.
“These machines can be the subject of fraud, basically facilitating fraud on seniors and other vulnerable individuals and in those cases,” Longest said. “… In crafting regulations, I think it’s important that we ensure consumers are adequately protected by those regulations and I do not believe that, under the language of the bill currently before you, those regulations are sufficient to protect consumers.”
Jackson pointed to this bill as an effort to regulate, not shut down, cryptocurrency kiosks in the state and said there are even more consumer protections in place.
David N. Tente, the executive director of the ATM Industry Association, said the bill — and others like it — is problematic because it requires operators to provide refunds to fraud victims in certain instances.
“In most cases, the cash in the ATM/kiosk does not belong to the operator, which means that returning any of it would be, technically, theft,” Tente said. “If you give someone cash for something, and you change your mind after they leave, you probably won’t get it back.”
He added: “We certainly feel sorry for those being scammed, but there are very simple things you can do to avoid it.”
Tente said these kinds of scams have existed for centuries, adding: “They are still here — just using different means of payment.”
Key Takeaways
- Zcash surged 11.3% to $478, reclaiming its top privacy coin status over monero after an 80% rally.
- The ZEC spike wiped out $11.5 million in short positions within 24 hours as bitcoin dropped below $63,000.
- Analysts like Matthew Brienen watch Zcash next to see how the market prices in the 2022 Orchard pool bug.
The Orchard Vulnerability
Privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) surged on Tuesday, jumping 11.3% to $478 as it maintained a steady recovery that began shortly after it plunged to just under $265. At the time of writing (5:32 a.m. EST), the privacy coin’s latest climb pushed its gains since June 5 to approximately 80% and saw ZEC’s market capitalization reclaim the $8 billion threshold.
The coin, alongside rival monero, was one of a handful of altcoins that logged gains exceeding 5% even as bitcoin dipped below the $63,000 threshold. ZEC’s surge above $470 on June 9 resulted in $11.5 million in short positions on the coin being wiped out in 24 hours, compared with $2.43 million in liquidated long bets.
While Zcash has since wrestled back its top-dog status from chief rival Monero, the asset is still trading at a steep discount compared to its pre-June 5 peak of just over $600. Before the correction, ZEC was riding a powerful wave of momentum, fueled by a resurgence in the crypto-privacy narrative and high-profile endorsements from industry heavyweights like Arthur Hayes. However, that bullish trajectory ground to a sudden halt. The catalyst for the reversal was the unsettling discovery of a critical vulnerability within Zcash’s Orchard shielded pool—a zero-knowledge security flaw that had quietly lay dormant since 2022.
Despite this, supporters of the privacy coin believe the uncovering of the bug has not damaged ZEC’s long-term appeal. Posting on X, Eunice Wong insisted there is an extremely low likelihood an exploit was executed and said traders who offloaded their holdings had overreacted.
“Long-term thesis hasn’t changed. In an AI-driven world where every transaction is tracked, financial privacy will become the scarcest asset, and ZEC is still one of the strongest privacy plays in crypto. Catching this falling knife is going to look like a genius move,” Wong wrote.
Matthew Brienen, managing partner at Cryptocharged, said while he recently reduced his ZEC holdings, it was purely a risk-management decision rather than a change in conviction. Nevertheless, he offered an explanation for why caution is warranted even if there is no proof that ZEC was counterfeited.
“The Orchard bug isn’t a confirmed inflation event. It’s a confirmed inability to prove supply integrity. Those are not the same thing. The most important fundamental fact to remember is that turnstile accounting is not the same as proving Orchard balances are legitimate. You can track what entered. You can track what exited. That doesn’t prove every claim inside the pool was valid,” Brienen explained.
He added, however, that if counterfeit Orchard notes do exist, they could remain hidden until redemption is ultimately forced. According to Brienen, the recent price action suggests that is exactly what the market is trying to price in.
Key Takeaways
- Top 100 institutional bitcoin holders now control nearly 1.26 million BTC, although Strategy alone accounts for more than two-thirds of that total.
- Mining firms, technology companies, private enterprises, and treasury vehicles are using bitcoin to diversify reserves, hedge inflation risk, and signal long-term conviction.
- The data shows broad institutional participation, but holdings remain highly concentrated among crypto-native firms and one dominant corporate buyer.
Bitcoin Treasuries Are Turning Scarcity Into Strategy
Institutional bitcoin accumulation has grown dramatically, with the top 100 holders now controlling 1,258,090 BTC as of June 8, 2026, according to a chart published on X by HODL15Capital. This group includes public companies, private firms, mining operators, and treasury-focused entities, reflecting specialized corporate allocations alongside one dominant buyer.
At the top of the list, Strategy holds exactly 845,256 BTC, far surpassing every other entity. Twentyone Capital follows with 43,514 BTC, and Japan’s Metaplanet holds 40,177 BTC, showing that institutional BTC accumulation is global and spans multiple industries. Marathon Digital contributes 35,303 BTC.
The size of Strategy’s lead reveals how uneven the race has become. One company controls more bitcoin than the rest of the top 100 combined, turning corporate treasury policy into a marketwide talking point. For investors, that concentration makes Strategy one of the clearest equity-market proxies for BTC exposure.
Other major names on the chart include Coinbase, Riot Platforms, Tesla, Spacex, Cleanspark, Block, Galaxy Digital, American Bitcoin Corp., and Hut 8. That lineup makes the trend easy to understand: bitcoin is no longer only a crypto-sector balance sheet bet. It now reaches miners, exchanges, technology firms, private companies, and treasury vehicles.
The BTC Concentration Across Sectors and Borders
The global spread of BTC holders is as notable as the headline total. Metaplanet’s top ranking shows adoption is no longer U.S.-centric, with participants from Japan, Canada, Europe, and Asia signaling worldwide corporate and institutional demand for bitcoin.
The supply angle is what makes the chart matter beyond crypto circles. The top 100 holders control more than 6% of bitcoin’s maximum 21 million supply, giving a singular corporate buyer a highly visible role in market liquidity. For shareholders, that creates both upside potential and sharper exposure to crypto-driven swings.
Overall, the chart illustrates a highly centralized institutional concentration of bitcoin reserves. The focus is no longer just who holds the most, but how BTC has become a balance sheet battleground, with companies using treasury positions to signal conviction, attract investors, and position themselves in a more bitcoin-integrated financial landscape.
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