Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, is preparing a hiring binge in India, with new engineers receiving a one-time payment of $1,000 in cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin exchange Coinbase is on a hiring spree for its freshly created technology hub in India, and it’s enticing prospective hires with the promise of a $1,000 reward in bitcoin.
According to Pankaj Gupta, Coinbase’s VP of Engineering in India, “we have ambitious plans for this hub in the near future–we want to hire hundreds of world class engineers within the next few months.”
Coinbase has launched a new programme dubbed “CIkka” (short for “Coinbase India Sikka”) in order to achieve this lofty objective. The company will provide each new employee with a one-time payment of $1,000 in cryptocurrency as part of this scheme.
According to Gupta, India is experiencing a “boom in crypto-native talent,” and a hefty financial incentive would encourage newcomers to learn more about cryptocurrency and “use this knowledge to help us build the next generation of products.”
Gupta stated that Coinbase intends to establish locally-led teams for all of the primary areas in which the business is currently engaged, which include infrastructure development, cloud platforms, payments solutions, blockchains, data engineering, and machine learning, among others.
Apart from that, the San Francisco-based company is aiming to expand its presence in the Indian market through startup acquisitions and acquihires–the process of purchasing a company for its expertise rather than its products, services, or income streams.
India’s regulatory ambiguity with regards to cryptocurrencies
The announcement of Coinbase’s hiring plans comes at a time when the regulatory status of cryptocurrencies in India is still up in the air.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) restricted local financial institutions from providing services to cryptocurrency startups in April 2018, limitations that were eased earlier this year.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and India’s legislators and authorities are grappling with the issue of how to deal with cryptocurrencies, with some arguing for an outright ban on bitcoin.
In March, India’s finance minister advocated the creation of a “window” to allow for cryptocurrency experimentation, and the government is considering convening a panel of experts to study cryptocurrency legislation in the country.
However, the specific ideas that the country’s legislators have for the forthcoming crypto bill remain a mystery.
Even still, according to recent research from Chainalysis, crypto adoption in India is accelerating, with the aggregate volume of crypto investments in the country having risen over the previous year from $200 million to roughly $40 billion.
