First posted on CoinSpectator, Indian based Bitcoin exchange Unocoin has announced that it will be back online starting tomorrow, Janaury 8th. Unocoin, who provides buying and selling of bitcoin denominated in Indian rupees temporarily suspended its business after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced at the end of December a warning against virtual currencies as they were deemed risky. The warning was followed by several exchanges being raided and closed by the India’s government due to lack of financial regulation.
In terms of Unocoin, at the time of suspending trading on December 27th 2013, the company referenced the RBI’s warning as the cause of their actions. At the time of the trading halt, according to Unocoin’s records, the exchange was processing around 50,000 bitcoin transactions a day with peak activity of nearly 100,000 Execution taking place at the end of November.
Presently, Unocoin has stated that the company will be reopening for trading after a positive presentation of the Bitcoins Alliance India (BAI) on January 4th as they stated:
After press conference organized by BAI headed by Mr. Nishith Desai, and after the take-aways of the conference are out to public through media, Mr. Nishith Desai has given us a green signal to start Unocoin operations which will be starting on 6th Jan 2014 when the logins will be enabled and Unocoin wallets will be accessible. Buying and selling of bitcoins will go live from 8th of Jan 2014. CoinMonk Ventures and Unocoin is very thankful to Nishith Desai and their team for being a part of press conference and guiding us through till here.
For India, the news is a positive development for the country, as demand among the population for alternative currencies is considered strong. In addition to just bitcoins, due to remittance playing a large part in the country’s economy, Indian’s are known for being active users of alternative currencies, with Liberty Reserve’s seizure making an impact on locals. As a result, approved guidelines from the RBI for bitcoin exchanges would be expected to cause a portion of remittance flow to rotate towards the digital currency as it provides lower fees than traditional fund transfers like Western Union.
