Benson Samuel is the CTO & Co-Founder of Coinsecure, a start-up focusing on solving the liquidity problem of bitcoin in India. Following a career in the payments space, Samuel realized that cryptocurrency could solve many of the issues that plagued the industry and took an instant liking to bitcoin.
With his newfound passion for bitcoin, Samuel found a critical problem early on, which was the lack of liquidity for bitcoin in the Indian market. This eventually led to the founding of Coinsecure- a bitcoin exchange which hopes to make bitcoin a part of every Indian’s wallet.
Cointelegraph: Tell us about Coinsecure and some upcoming projects.
Benson Samuel: Coinsecure has proven itself to be one of India's best startups, whether it is in the Bitcoin space or from the growing Indian startups perspective. Apart from a Bitcoin Exchange, we are working on delivering a wallet and a merchant gateway as well. The wallet is live on our testnet system on coinsecureis.cool.
We also have a lot of educational events across schools, meetups and hackathons, where we engage with people to understand Bitcoin better. The next big one will be our mobile app, which will allow us to gain further traction with regards to Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin has opened up people’s eyes to understand that there is an alternative [.]”
CT: In what ways do you think bitcoin usage has impacted the average Indian? What do you envision in the near future for bitcoin usage in India?
BS: Bitcoin has opened up people’s eyes to understand that there is an alternative to the current centralized system that we use. While it is currently being used widely to speculate or conduct arbitrage by the Indian trading community, Bitcoin’s future in India will get a lot more exciting with time, as more startups adopt Bitcoin and more tech is delivered around it for India.
CT: What are your plans for Coinsecure?
BS: Coinsecure has been a huge and ambitious project and it has come a long way. Mohit Kalra (The CEO of Coinsecure) and I build on the product everyday and are constantly tweaking and adding better features. Our aim is to build a product that can funnel an ecosystem, either by using our API or by conducting arbitrage on our platform. We are fast, reliable and we really understand what we are doing in this space, for India.
CT: Micro-Payments and remittances are among the major pain points for the urban and rural sections of Indian society, which bitcoin could address immediately. Do you see bitcoin being used for the above scenarios and what is Coinsecure doing to facilitate this?
BS: Yes, Bitcoin is very capable of micro-payments and remittances, but needs a bit more time before tech like sidechains or lightning network get standardized into Bitcoin. At the moment, last mile providers like us need to be used to convert the bitcoin to Indian Rupees. My hope is that this will change over the next 5-10 years and people will start to use bitcoin directly as they receive it. This is where it shines in the Indian Context.
In the meantime, we are releasing our version of a bitcoin wallet, which will provide off-chain capabilities, which will allow transactions as low as 1 satoshi with no fees and we will grow this into an on-chain solution option over the coming months.
“It is just a matter of time, before the ecosystem explodes and provides options for Investment [.]”
CT: In the past year, few other industries can compete with bitcoin in terms of innovation and momentum. This, off course, has led to an influx in VC capital. This, however, doesn’t hold true for India. What’s the reason for this?
BS: VC's and angels are interested in Bitcoin in India. We have seen some seed funds and small stages being done. The larger amounts have obviously not entered into India as the ecosystem is in 'build up' mode. There is a tremendous amount of interest in this space. It is just a matter of time, before the ecosystem explodes and provides options for Investment, which is when this will start to look like an Industry.