Bitcoin prices in India are soaring, and are expected to reach $1,000 by the end of 2016

India recently announced the abolition of 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes, and people fell into panic, trying every means to spend their hard-earned money. If the Indian people could realize that Bitcoin can play an important role in this cash crisis, then would the direction of things be completely different from what it is now?

The international currency market is currently unstable, and India is no exception. Vinny Lingham (entrepreneur, CEO of CivicKey) recently said in his Twitter: "I think given the current market situation, we can't determine how much money will flow into the Bitcoin market by next month."

Currently, the most frequently used tags on Twitter include #India, #Trump, etc. Previously, the CEO of CivicKey predicted that the price of Bitcoin will soar to $1,000 before the end of 2016, which makes us connect these two things together.

Josh Harvey, co-founder of Lamassu, tweeted that one percent of India's population, or about 13 million people, has begun to understand Bitcoin and knows that the Bitcoin market has huge trading potential.

Tuur Demeester, editor-in-chief of Adamant Research, also tweeted that Indian bitcoin exchange Zebpay is currently selling bitcoin at 20% above the market price, about $895. From this, it can be inferred that Tuur believes that digital currency played a certain role in the incident in India. At the same time, the large-scale cashing out of the people reflects the uncertainty of the Indian rupee.

Development Opportunities

Kumar Gaurav, founder and CEO of remittance company Cashaa, said that India's demonetization event has created conditions for the exchange of industries between the East and the West, and it is also of great benefit to Cashaa. Through the Cashaa platform, users can transfer money in real time without the help of intermediaries or banks, which is especially beneficial for users in the market with high liquidity. After the demonetization event, the possibility of selling Bitcoin to the Indian people has also greatly increased.

Gaurav told Cointelegraph: “It is undeniable that the abolition of certain denominations of banknotes in India has increased the price of Bitcoin in the long run. As soon as the Indian government announced the abolition of banknotes, Indians immediately invested in a large amount of gold because, in their opinion, gold has the best storage value and will not depreciate.”

He added: “But gold needs to be stored in a relatively safe place, and it is not very convenient to go back and forth to buy it. It is difficult for us to determine how many Indians have heard about Bitcoin. The news says it is 1%, so let’s take it as 1%. 1% of Indians is already a large number. If all these people turn to buying Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin will definitely be driven up. The current price of Bitcoin is already 20% higher than usual, and the price will continue to rise in the short term.”

How do people learn about Bitcoin?

So how did this 1% of Indians learn about Bitcoin? At present, Indians still prefer cash because cash is more real and easy to manage. When you want to buy something or a product, you don’t need to go through a third party. Therefore, we have no idea how this 1% of Indians learned about Bitcoin.

But one thing is certain: the government’s decision to abolish certain denominations of banknotes has largely led to the Indian people starting to buy Bitcoin on a large scale.

Gaurav added: “Currently, Indians are forced to find other ways to exchange their cash to avoid losses. Bitcoin plays a unique role here. The value of Bitcoin is completely controlled by the owner and can be traded in real time through P2P, which is very similar to cash. I think whether in the long term or short term, people are beginning to pay more and more attention to Bitcoin, which is a good phenomenon and will benefit the development of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.”

How exactly people heard about Bitcoin and started buying it in large quantities remains a mystery. Until this question is solved, let us wait and see how the Indian currency market develops in the next month.