Coinbase is making India its top international priority for the next 18 to 24 months, betting that the country’s scale can outweigh regulatory and tax hurdles.
“Our executive team and board of directors have made a decision to prioritise India as our number one international market for the next 18 to 24 months,” John O’Loghlen, Managing Director, APAC, Coinbase, told Fortune India.
The move marks a reset after Coinbase halted services in India in 2023. It resumed trading last year after registering with the Financial Intelligence Unit.
“We’re fully onshore now. We have a completely new platform built for India that complies with Indian taxation, FIU and other legal requirements,” O’Loghlen said.
Scale Drives India Bet
India has more than 1.4 billion people and an estimated 100 million crypto owners. According to Coinbase, that scale creates opportunity despite a 30% tax on crypto gains and a 1% tax deducted at source.
Coinbase Ventures increased its investment in CoinDCX at a valuation of USD 2.45 billion. Its India workforce exceeds 500 employees.
Building an ‘Everything Exchange’
Coinbase plans to move beyond spot crypto trading by adding derivatives, equities and tokenised assets.
“We want to offer consumers and Indian users whatever they would like to trade under one roof,” O’Loghlen said.
The company plans tokenised equities and UPI integration. “There’s very real demand here for access to US equities, whether they’re traditional equities or tokenised equities,” he said.
Stablecoins and AI Could Drive Growth
Coinbase is betting on stablecoins, remittances and agentic commerce. “The next wave of growth, in my view, is agentic commerce and remittances around stablecoins,” O’Loghlen said.
He expects bots and AI advisors to drive e-commerce and trading activity within 12 to 18 months. Coinbase believes India’s remittance market and stablecoin settlement could create an opportunity.
“India is aware it can’t hide from stablecoins or avoid stablecoins. It has to work out how to develop a framework or policy,” O’Loghlen said.
For Coinbase, India is a test of whether compliant crypto platforms can scale alongside regulation, tokenised finance and AI-driven payments.
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