So far I have covered details about Wazirx and Kucoin which are the 2 crypto exchanges that I use very often. In this article, I will cover the details of the very first cryptocurrency exchange that I started with.

While I did start my crypto journey from this exchange, I no longer use it. In fact, I have less than 2,000 INR just sitting in this exchange for over 2 years. The crypto exchange that I am talking about today is Unocoin.

I’m sure that Indians who were in the crypto market during the last bull run would have used Unocoin at one point in time. Unocoin was also the very first cryptocurrency exchange in the country.

Let us now have a closer look at Unocoin, its rise, and its fall.

Why did I choose Unocoin?

My crypto journey started way back in December of 2016. I had won a few Bitcoins for using this app called Slidejoy. At that time it was worth just $2. I already had my pan card so, I created an account on Unocoin and just transferred my Bitcoin to my Unocoin wallet.

Then for a few months, I had totally forgotten about this transaction. Then the Bitcoin bull run started in 2017 and I remembered that I have some money in this asset. When I had a look, my winnings had quadrupled. I was extremely happy about this and I ended up liquidating this.

Then I started to do more research about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and thought of investing some of my money in it. However, to invest my bank account did not have internet banking enabled. So, it was impossible to fund my account.

Luckily, Unocoin used to allow us to fund the account using e-wallets such as PAYU. This allowed me to buy Bitcoin using my debit card itself. At this time I was still a student. So, I was investing only very little every month.

Unocoin was the only crypto exchange that was trust-worthy and offered the ability to buy Bitcoin using e-wallets. This was the main reason why I started off with Unocoin.

What made me move towards other exchanges?

When I initially started using Unocoin, it offered the ability to buy only Bitcoin. Additionally, it wasn’t a complete exchange yet. It used to offer brokerage services to its customers. While this did avoid the need for wait-times to execute trades, Unocoin used to price the value of the assets higher than the market value and also charge higher fees than any other exchange.

Additionally, the lack of support of altcoins was a big reason why I decided to jump ships.

However, the killer blow came towards the end of 2017 when Unocoin decided to remove the e-wallet support. With me not being able to fund my account anymore, I had to halt all account funding activities for a while.

Unocoin was not able to adapt to the rapidly changing cryptocurrency market. They remained in the same position that they were in whereas all the new exchanges went past them.

The Comeback in 2018:

At the beginning of 2018, Unocoin did release an exchange platform in its ecosystem. While this did add a few alt-coins to the mix, it was a little too late for this Indian crypto exchange. Most of their loyal customers had already discovered exchanges like Kucoin and Binance. It was simply impossible to match the competition.

With fewer customers on Unocin, the liquidity on this exchange took a great hit. If an exchange does not offer good liquidity, it is better that you to stay away from it.

In February of 2018, another ray of hope came in the way of Unocoin. There were a lot of talks about the Indian government banning cryptocurrencies. So, people got all their assets to these local exchanges itself. However, this was a double-edged sword.

While bringing in assets to the platform did mean that the volume of cryptocurrency in Unocoin was high. However, people wanted to quickly sell it and withdraw their assets.

The final blow:

When RBI imposed a banking ban on crypto exchanges, it created a lot of panic in the Indian crypto space. People went on to sell all their holdings. With no further usage for Unocoin, the platform saw a massive decrease in its usage.

To bring back users to the crypto space, the team did install an offline Bitcoin ATM. However, due to legal issues, this had to be removed and we Indians had to live without cryptocurrency for 2 whole years. Unocoin saw massive downsizing and we currently see a platform that hardly sees 1,00,000 INR daily volume.

Conclusion:

Unocoin was ahead of every other indigenous cryptocurrency exchange. However, it was their pride and inability to adapt that undid the massive empire that they had built. Unocoin also had merchant products to allow merchants to accept cryptocurrencies as a mode of payment. However, with average marketing, this failed to gain traction.

Unocoin was once my favorite exchange but its inability to change to the changing conditions led to its eventual demise. If you do come across Unocoin, use it only if you want to experiment with the platform. With high trading fees, low liquidity, and high withdrawal fees, I would currently not suggest this exchange to anyone.

Cc:-
@steemitblog
@steemcurator01
@steemcurator02

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