We’ve seen 8x growth in acquisition and 4x growth in volumes: Prashant Verma, CoinDCX

On January 3, 2009, the first cryptocurrency was launched when the Bitcoin software was made available to the public. In India, cryptocurrency made its way for the first time around 2009 in the form of Bitcoin. This was followed by the first commercial transaction in 2010 and then the first Cryptocurrency exchange in 2013. Since then, the sector has seen significant ups and downs. Today, the focus on security and education has seen new crypto investors entering the fray and established investors and traders gaining experience, leading to India now being seen as a rapidly maturing crypto market.

‘India ka Crypto Coach’

With a mission to instruct consumers about crypto investment apps/crypto exchanges, CoinDCX - established in 2018 - has positioned itself as ‘India ka Crypto Coach,’ to empower Indians by educating and guiding them step-by-step into the world of crypto.

Taking this forward, CoinDCX launched the ‘Learn Karo. Crypto Karo.’ campaign, in November last year, with former cricketer and the current coach of the Indian national cricket team, Gautam Gambhir as its first brand ambassador.

A key insight for this campaign was that regular equity investors and traders were not investing in crypto, and the biggest consumer barrier was the lack of understanding of this sector. Another insight was that though consumers were keen to invest in crypto, the trepidation and fear of losing money kept them out.

Commenting on this, Prashant Verma, Chief Growth & Marketing Officer, CoinDCX, says, “There was a fear in customers that they would mess up if they invested in crypto. Hence, we figured that the only way to overcome this fear was to educate and empower our customers so that they enter this exciting asset class and learn it the right way.” He continues, “This also tied in with our long-term vision as market leaders in this category in India, despite challenges. In terms of the volume of users, we have seen mass adoption in the country. Our proposition became to put learning at the heart of CoinDCX, as this enables consumers with a confident start to crypto. We wanted to convert fear into confidence when it comes to crypto and be the enabler that gives you confidence through our set of tools.”

CoinDCX is positioning itself as a mass product with currently “2 crore registered users.” The brand brought on board Gautam Gambhir as its brand ambassador, as in addition to being the coach of the Indian cricket team, Gambhir’s values resonated with the brand as someone who has risen up the ranks and evolved from a Test player to an ODI player and a T20 player to an IPL winning mentor and finally as a coach. This journey of continuous learning is what Verma says resonated with the brand as well.

Building A Mass Product

To generate mass awareness, consideration and acquisition, the brand uses top-of-the-funnel marketing channels like television, OTT, digital videos to drive consideration, while mid-funnel channels such as performance marketing is for tapping into intent and consideration. Product marketing has played well to drive conversions onto the app with high segmentation strategies and create a personalized experience for customers. The campaign saw “phenomenal results” as Verma shares, “Our monthly acquisition has grown 8x since we started this campaign and revenues and trading volumes have grown 4x. Simply put, we’ve seen 800% growth in acquisition and 400% growth in volumes. This gives you confidence that you're on the right path and direction. It also reinforces that we have not only captured the right insight but also the vision for the company, and the way that we want to grow by helping customers make the right decision when it comes to crypto. We also want to ensure that you only put in your money when you have learnt about crypto as a category.” He adds, “A lot of consumers came into crypto to make a quick buck. However, our stance has been that consumers should learn about crypto before investing and not because others are investing. Some of those decisions have borne fruit.

Another change, post the ‘Learn Karo. Crypto Karo’ has been a change in the TG. Initially, the average age of the crypto adopter was between 23 years to 24 years. Now, the TG age has moved to between 30 years and 35 years. Verma says, “A slightly more mature audiences has come in into crypto, the ones with deeper pockets. That’s been our intent also, and we have been trying to grow this category. The response seen in Tier-II cities has been phenomenal as 40% of the new acquisitions has come in from Tier-II markets like Jaipur, Lucknow, Surat, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bhopal etc. The largest markets remain Delhi, Mumbai followed by Ahmendabad and Bangalore.”

Building Awareness To Drive Engagement

With the focus on education, CoinDCX has classified its customers in multiple categories, - as a beginner, intermediate or a pro – and the learning material has been classified accordingly; and when a customer comes onto the platform/app, they are onboarded with the segmented solution as per customer profile. The brand has also partnered with influencers – called crypto coaches – who along with CoinDCX help provide learning material to customers, disperse education, as well as build trust and familiarity with the brand. Community is another important space, unique to crypto with peer-to-peer learning and building community becoming important to drive final conversion. CoinDCX has communities in 22 cities across the country which have helped translate drive awareness of the brand campaign and generate consideration at micro levels. In addition, to influencer partnerships and community building, CoinDCX hosts events, webinars to generate awareness and drive engagement and consideration.

A common sight across financial hubs and brokerages across the country are chai breaks and conversations on trading and investing over a cup of tea. With the aim to include crypto into these conversations and drawing inspiration from Chai Pe Charcha, CoinDCX launched Bitcoin Chai Café, for conversations around crypto over chai, to as an experiment. Pop-up cafes were launched across Mumbai in areas around brokerage offices. Verma says the response was phenomenal. He says, “We got a lot of engagement with these experiential marketing efforts. While awareness has been created by mass media, this created deeper consideration and conversation and that's where we got our intent right. Our job was to fuel conversations, and we succeeded in that. The measurement we did within the respective pockets saw that the intent was significantly higher, and subsequent leads which came onto the platform right, drove those conversions. It's been a huge success for us, and we've got requests from the other chapters in the country.”

Another marquee event of the crypto firm is Namaste Web3. Web3 is the next generation of the internet, revolutionising the way we interact online. With Web3, decentralised applications are more secure, transparent, and efficient. Namaste Web3 is designed to introduce Web3 to the Indian community and showcase the many benefits it can bring to businesses, individuals, and society. Verma says, “The groundwork has been done over the last year to ensure that we take off in the right direction. Namaste Web3 is a learning platform that runs across the top cities in India and helps in building the category and enabling the category growth in the country.”

 Additionally, when it comes to policy and regulations, CoinDCX was the first Indian crypto firm to register as an FIU-registered (Financial Intelligence Unit) reporting entity, aligned with the new anti-money laundering laws. The crypto firm has also obtained an ISO certification and has been enlisted by the Enforcement Directorate to provide custodian services for seized cryptocurrency.

Looking ahead, on what’s on top of his agenda, Verma says, “Number one is to enable category adoption inside the country. Second, to build a lasting brand and third of course is business growth.”