Interview Responses by Mr. Rahul Raj – Co-Founder and CEO, Koinex.

1. A brief about Koinex?

Koinex is India’s largest and most advanced digital assets exchange. It is also the first multi-currency exchange with an open order book format in India and was built with the motive to provide Indian investors a trading platform that matched global standards. One of the main reasons why Koinex grew to become the most trusted digital assets exchange in a short span of time is our ‘consumer- centricity’. Product development never stops at Koinex, we are constantly looking at ways to better the user experience by enhancing the efficiency of the platform, improving the robust security offering and making ‘value-add features’ on our platform to help in easy and smarter trading. Our P2P trading platform Loop is an example of our innovation, as it reflects in the enumerable user-benefit features we introduce on the platform, on a regular basis. We aim to make India a hotbed for blockchain technology and Koinex was our first step towards this goal. We take pride that Koinex is built in India, built for India.

2. What are the chances of cryptocurrency sweeping away all forms of traditional currency?

Cryptocurrency can be defined as a digital or virtual asset designed to work as a medium of exchange. By that definition, crypto assets can be a commodity product (like gold, etc.) as or it can be a currency with monetary value. So, it is up to the governance to determine what ‘asset’ class they want to define for cryptocurrency and then create a regulatory framework accordingly, which will help the sector to grow. Lack of regulation creates market uncertainty which is a major impediment for the crypto-category. The bigger picture here is the transformation by blockchain technology and the positive change it will bring to our ecosystem. The adoption of blockchain also means that cryptocurrency is here to stay because they co-exist. So, at present it might be tough to predict the exact role of cryptocurrency, but it will surely have a dominant force in the context of global economy for sure.

3. Regarding, Loop, the latest service by you guys, how failsafe is it?

Loop is India’s first collateralized Peer-to-Peer trading platform allowing users to purchase

digital assets using their INR and sell digital assets for INR with zero network and transaction fees. We have enhanced Loop with fundamentally critical features like compulsory KYC compliance, multiple payment options, technology-enabled dispute settlement and automated action calls via IVR. Other key aspects on Loop include, user rating mechanism, cancellation option for sellers, listing modification, dynamic pricing, cleansing of stale listings and host of other features to ensure only genuine and legitimate trading on the platform. We are also building sophisticated algorithms to enhance the trust factor and discourage fraudulent activities on Loop. This platform is also fully integrated with Koinex exchange to create their own ecosystem where one account can be used to access crypto/crypto corridors on Koinex and INR/crypto trades on Loop, thus completing the trading cycle for users.

4. How do you think, blockchain/cryptocurrency can contribute towards healthcare?

One of the key reasons why Blockchain technology is so hyped is that it is a decentralized network and it provides data security which cannot be tampered or breached in any way. So, adoption of blockchain in healthcare will provide scope for safer access and storage of medical records. We can accurately monitor drug development and supply chain management, from start to finish and most importantly we can improve medical care access to patients in remote areas. Blockchain applications can also help in better judgement during claims and insurance settlements. The overall medical costs will drastically reduce as blockchain will help eliminate intermediaries. It will also help in streamlining research and development of new drugs by assisting in better access to technology and academia across the globe. Many of these blockchain applications will also have supporting blockchain tokens which will universally have the same value, so we can avoid the loss of capital due to conversation rates between currencies. Even though the data will be universally available, patients and medical institutions can protect their information using ‘smart contracts’ or by creating private key. In a nutshell, blockchain has the power to create a universally accepted healthcare ecosystem which is transparent, accountable, secure and accessed globally.

5. What according to you will be the impact of blockchain technology with respect to the healthcare department in the rural areas?

In our country majority of the population do not have access to proper medical care due to socio-economic reasons. Even the hospitals and medical centres in remote areas have paucity of skilled resources which further worsens the situation and the cost to build healthcare infrastructure across all these remote areas is not feasible either. The current state of health care records is disjointed due to a lack of a common platform and standards that would allow safe and easy transfer of medical records / information among key decision makers in the system. With blockchain we can create a common network which will efficiently connect patients with doctors, in real time. For eg., the doctor in the city need not travel to the remote location, instead the patient reports can be shared over blockchain and the doctor can advise the local attending on the course of treatment. We can also track the supply chain of drugs and utilities into the area to mitigate counterfeit and also monitor the overall health and hygiene conditions so that we can red flag any potential health hazard or epidemic situation. So overall the health department will be able to administer better care and services to the local community in an inclusive manner.

6. Do you plan on associating with some industry leaders in the healthcare sector?

Education and Healthcare are probably the two sectors, amongst many others, which will immensely benefit from implementation of blockchain. We are more than willing to partner with the government and industry leaders to help build suitable blockchain applications to address the challenges we face. Even WHO has expressed interest to adopt blockchain to accentuate their global healthcare programs. At Koinex we already are working on few ideas in this space and we are happy to share our technical expertise and blockchain acumen with committed players who are looking to bring a positive radical transformation to the healthcare services in India.

7. How accurately does blockchain prevent data theft?

Usually data is stored in a centralized location (server) and it can be accessed across the network. So, if there is a hack or theft in the centralized location, it compromises the entire network. Also, data breach can happen in any remote location on the network which might go undetected by the central server. However, with blockchain, firstly the data storage is decentralized and a copy of the data is held across the network, so for any breach, one will have to have access to all the computers (nodes) in the network at the same time which is impossible. Whenever a new data is entered or edited on the network, a notification is sent across this distributed network and the consensus of the nodes is required before the ‘data update’ is incorporated on the chain. If someone attempts to cheat the system, the breach or theft of data is notified to the entire network and they can be easily identified.

8. According to you, is India ready to go through the blockchain/cryptocurrency revolution?

India definitely has the ability to become a hotbed for blockchain technology for the world to emulate. We have the entrepreneurial ecosystem, technical expertise and the skilled workforce to build this category, provided we have a favourable regulatory framework to support it. India, by virtue of its huge population, of which the majority are youth, automatically becomes a big market for any emerging technology to capitalize. India lost out on the internet boom

9. How many more years according to you will the world take till it accepts cryptocurrency as widely as the traditional currency?

Taking a cue from the current global trends around cryptocurrency and the interest towards adoption of blockchain, we surely can say that we are heading towards a future where cryptocurrency will play a dominant role. The two main challenges currently are, lack of scalability and the need for more sections of the world population to be acquainted with cryptocurrency. So probably within the next decade, we might be in a new era of digital transformation where everything is powered through blockchain and dealing in cryptos.

10. What are your views on the Supreme Court’s recent statement about cryptocurrency?

The RBI directive was a knee-jerk move by the government which impacted the whole crypto-industry and it also endangers the future of blockchain technology in India. We would have liked the government to take our opinion on this matter first or at-least have a discussion with our industry representatives prior to taking such an abrupt decision. We hope that the government will pay heed to our request and be open towards working together with us in creating a favourable regulatory framework. With that hope we await the final verdict from the Supreme Court as the ruling is expected on Sept 11.

11. In case, the Supreme Court, comes out with an otherwise statement, what are your plans for sustenance?

The exchange is our first blockchain based product and we are already working on many other blockchain applications for various sectors. We are happy to even partner with industry leaders or consult with government bodies for blockchain implementation. We are also looking at expanding our business into the global market.

Corporate Comm India(CCI NewsWire)