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Crypto may not be acknowledged fully by the Indian government yet, but the sector is booming in terms of jobs. India now accounts for 11 per cent of the world’s crypto and Web3 talent, which makes it the third-largest such market, NASSCOM found in a new survey.
Even though more than 60 per cent of India’s crypto startups are registered outside the country, they continue to hire talent from India. Since 2018, India has witnessed a 138 per cent jump in crypto and blockchain related jobs. “India’s Web3 talent pool is growing at the fastest rate worldwide, at around 120 per cent likely in the next 1-2 years,” the industry body said in its study titled ‘The India Web3 Startup Landscape: An Emerging Technology Leadership Frontier’.
The country is now home to more than 450 Web3 startups, which have raised $1.3 billion in funding in the last two years (until April 2022), NASSCOM reported. Most of these startups are building in the decentralized finance (DeFi), NFT, and metaverse space, and employ about 75,000 professionals. India is also one of the leading adopters of DeFi in terms of value received on-chain ($88 billion in 2020-21).
NASSCOM further indicated that India’s Web3 growth is riding on its enormous pool of GenZ and millennial people, which make up an overwhelming 77 per cent of the population, “enabling a wave of consumption, discretionary spend, and urbanization”.
Sangeeta Gupta, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, NASSCOM, said in a note, “India’s rapid adoption of new-age technologies, its growing startup ecosystem, and the large-scale digitally skilled talent potential are all the right building blocks for India to emerge as a key player in the global Web3 landscape. On the consumption side also, India has the right economic and demographic elements to become a high-growth Web3 market.”
While India continues to be among the fastest-growing tech economies in the world, the global crypto user base is poised to surge from its current 320 million to 1 billion by 2030, according to NASSCOM. Globally, blockchain and crypto companies raised a whopping $30.5 billion in venture capital in 2021, amidst the crypto boom, according to the study.
In India, however, the crypto industry has often had an uneven relationship with the government and the financial regulators, RBI and SEBI, resulting in muted growth. “The lack of policy clarity around Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs), leading to a lack of confidence in founders and innovators, thereby forcing them to move their base to other countries, is not only taking the market away but also the critical talent and expertise needed in this area,” NASSCOM explained.
The industry body urged Web3 founders and CXOs to “actively engage with policymakers with constructive dialogue”, act as evangelists in the ecosystem, and “help the regulators address loopholes”. NASSCOM also called on academia to collaborate with industry to launch upskilling and certification programmes around Web3 and blockchain.
Also Read: CBDC a play against India’s interest in cryptos’: This is what industry stakeholders think about RBI’s CBDC concept note – BusinessToday
Also Read: ‘I’m a little uncomfortable’: KV Kamath trashes crypto, says he sees no value in the asset – BusinessToday
Copyright©2022 Living Media India Limited. For reprint rights: Syndications Today
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