Coinbase Invests in CoinDCX, Valuing Indian Crypto Exchange at $2.45 Billion

Coinbase has deepened its commitment to the Indian crypto market by investing further in CoinDCX, valuing the exchange at $2.45 billion post-money. Here's a quick breakdown of what this recent development in Indian cryptocurrency market:

Investment Highlights

• Investor: Coinbase Ventures (the investment arm of Coinbase)
• Recipient: CoinDCX, one of India’s leading crypto exchanges
• Valuation: $2.45 billion post-money
• Funding Type: Extension of a previous round; exact amount undisclosed
• Purpose:
  • Expand CoinDCX’s product suite
  • Drive user growth and innovation
  • Strengthen presence in India and the Middle East
  • Introduce new on-chain use cases tailored for India

• Strategic Moves:
  • CoinDCX recently acquired BitOasis, a crypto exchange in the Middle East and North Africa
  • The company now serves over 20 million users across India and the UAE

Coinbase’s Perspective:

Shan Aggarwal, Chief Business Officer at Coinbase, emphasized the potential of India and the Middle East as dynamic regions for crypto adoption and innovation

CoinDCX Valuation Timeline

Date	Round	Amount Raised	Post-Money Valuation	Key Investors
Sep 2020	Series B	$13.9M	$36.3M	Block.one, Polychain, Jump Capital
Jun 2021	Series C	$90.2M	$779M	Coinbase, Bain Capital, Polychain
Mar 2022	Series D	$135M	$1.51B	Pantera Capital, Steadview, Coinbase
Oct 2025	Extension	Undisclosed	$2.45B	Coinbase Ventures

Coinbase Reboots in India: FIU Nod, Trading Pause, and Possible CoinDCX Buyout

Coinbase, a leading centralized cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong, has grown into one of the most trusted platforms for buying, selling, and storing digital assets. It serves over 245,000 ecosystem partners across 100+ countries, with more than $425 billion in assets on its platform.

Headquartered in the U.S. (though now remote-first), Coinbase, has made a notable comeback in India after a period of regulatory turbulence. Here's a breakdown of its current status and activities:

Re-entry into the Indian Market

• Coinbase has officially registered with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), allowing it to operate under local compliance frameworks.
• This marks a strategic shift from its earlier exit in 2022, when it halted services due to issues with UPI integration and regulatory uncertainty.

What’s Now Available

• Indian users can reportedly send, receive, convert, and store supported cryptocurrencies on Coinbase.
• Full trading services (buy/sell) are expected to roll out later this year, following further regulatory alignment.

Security & Compliance

• Coinbase emphasizes high security standards including 2FA, cold storage, and insurance protection.
• Its FIU registration ensures anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, making it a safer option compared to unregulated platforms.

Limitations & Challenges

Trading is still restricted for Indian users as of now—no direct buying/selling of crypto.

Transaction fees on Coinbase tend to be higher than local exchanges like CoinDCX or Binance India.

Strategic Vision

Coinbase sees India as a key hub for onchain innovation, citing the country’s growing developer base and startup ecosystem.

The company aims to empower local builders through tools like Base, its Ethereum Layer 2 platform.

Crypto Exchange Comparison

Feature	Coinbase 🇺🇸	CoinDCX 🇮🇳	Binance India 🌏
Founded	2012 (US)	2018 (India)	2017 (Global)
Regulatory Status	FIU-registered in India	FIU-registered	Operates via WazirX (unclear FIU status)
Trading Access (India)	Limited (no buy/sell yet)	Full access	Full access
Fees	High (up to 3.99%)	Low (0.04%–0.1%)	Very Low (0.015%–0.1%)
Security	2FA, cold storage	BitGo-backed, recently hacked	2FA, SSL, cold storage
Mobile App	iOS & Android	iOS & Android	iOS & Android
Referral Bonus	₹750 in BTC	₹100 in ETH	Varies (BNB discounts)
User Experience	Global UX, beginner-friendly	Localized UX, beginner-friendly	Advanced UX, pro tools
Recent News	Re-entered India, may acquire CoinDCX	Recovering from $44M hack	Stable, high liquidity

Key Insights

• Coinbase is re-entering India with FIU registration and may acquire CoinDCX to accelerate local presence. Talks are ongoing but not confirmed. 
• CoinDCX offers low-cost trading and full access but is recovering from a major security breach. CoinDCX recently suffered a $44M hack.
• Binance India remains dominant for advanced traders, though its regulatory clarity is still in question.

Coinbase CEO Co-founded Startup Focussed on Increasing Human Lifespan Raises $40 Mn

Coinbase founder & CEO Brian Armstrong has raised $40 million for NewLimit, a startup focused on increasing human longevity, and was launched in December 2021.

NewLimit raised $40 million in Series A Round of funding from Dimension, Founders Fund, and Kleiner Perkins with participation from former Google CEO - Eric Schmidt, Elad Gil, Garry Tan, and Fred Ehrsam.

The funds raised is in addition to the founders’ original $110 million commitment to the company.

The San-Francisco based startup is inventing medicines composed of epigenetic reprogramming factors that restore youthful function in old cells. It leverage functional assays, single cell multi-omics, and machine learning to reveal epigenetic features of aging and discover rejuvenating interventions.

The team of NewLimit is composed of experts across cell biology, genomics, computational biology, machine learning, and operations.

Founded by Brian along with Blake Byers, Greg Johnson and Jacob Kimmel, NewLimit reprogram the epigenome to restore the instructions that each cell had when we were young.

Science behind NewLimit's Approach to increase human lifespan

NewLimit is focused on epigenetic causes of aging, which are driven by an individual's conduct and their environment, as opposed to their genetic code. The startup is not seeing it as a cure-all for the aging process, but they're encouraged by the ability to take old skin cells from mice and actually turn those into a newborn mouse, with no side effects. Understanding how those cells change and can be reborn could help improve existing immune systems or the wear-and-tear on brain cells.

Epigenetics is the study of how human behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way our genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change our DNA sequence, but they can change how our body reads a DNA sequence.

Nature has already created complex molecular machines that can achieve this task, and biotechnology now allows to design entirely new epigenetic reprogramming tools from first principles.

NewLimit combine single cell profiling with new cell reprogramming methods that take advantage of molecular barcoding and CRISPR technology to test thousands of hypotheses in a single experiment.

In a simple language, NewLimit leverage functional assays (investigative Lab tests/procedures), single cell multi-comics (integrated perspective to power discovery across multiple levels of biology), and machine learning to reveal epigenetic features of human aging and discover rejuvenating interventions.

Coinbase To Ramp Up Its Investment in Indian Startups; Hire 1,000 for India Hub this Year

American cryptocurrency exchange platform, Coinbase, will ramp up its investment in India and the Nasdaq-listed company will be hiring 1,000 people in the India hub this year, besides continuing investments in Indian startups through its investment arm Coinbase Ventures.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, announced in a blog post, "Coinbase Ventures has already invested $150 million in home-grown Indian technology companies in the crypto and web3 space, and is constantly identifying new opportunities to help Indian founders scale."

Coinbase’s Indian tech hub was launched last year and currently has over 300 full time employees.

Notably, Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US by trading volume, and is said to be a distributed company wherein all employees operate via remote work and the company lacks a physical headquarters.

Brian mentions that the company has ambitious plans for India and seek to hire over 1,000 people in the company’s India hub this year alone. Brian is in India since the beginning of this month and will be interacting with crypto community founders, evangelists and even students

In addition to above, Coinbase will be hosting a crypto community event in Bangalore to discuss the future of crypto and web3 in India. "We will have many special guests", he said. Registration of same is here.

Recently, Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of Coinbase, in partnership with Indian Incubator, and Buidlers Tribe, launched a Startup Pitch Session wherein Startups stand a chance to pitch and win up to $1 million in funding from Coinbase Ventures and $25K in grants and mentorship to select founders from BeliefDAO.

Recently, in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Coinbase blocked 25,000 cryptocurrency wallet addresses related to Russia, believing them to have engaged in illicit activity. 

Coinbase Ventures and Buidlers Tribe Join Hands to Fund Web3 Innovations in India

Coinbase Ventures and Buidlers Tribe unite to foster Web3 innovation in India 

Startups stand a chance to pitch and win up to $1Million in funding from Coinbase Ventures and $25K in grants and mentorship to select founders from BeliefDAO

Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of Coinbase, the world’s most trusted platform from which to access the cryptoeconomy, has partnered with Indian Incubator, Buidlers Tribe, to launch a Startup Pitch Session to propel the thriving Web3 ecosystem in India. Registrations are now open for Web3 startups from across India to send in their pitches, and the top 5 shortlisted startups will present live on April 8, 2022, to an esteemed panel of experts from Coinbase Ventures and Buidlers Tribe. The startups can apply for this event here.

A cohort of the top twenty-five shortlisted startups will pitch via video entries and the top five will get a chance to win from a prize pool of up to $1 million from Coinbase Ventures and an additional $25K in grants along with mentorship support from Belief DAO.

The web3 startup ecosystem has expanded considerably in recent years and has garnered significant interest. The space saw a record $17 billion in funding last year and has already crossed $3 billion this year. Being the third-largest startup ecosystem globally, India has been recognised as a technology hub with several global names hoping to tap into developer talent.

“ At Coinbase, we are extremely excited about Web3 innovation happening in India and look forward to continuing our ongoing support of the Indian crypto/Web3 ecosystem. The Web3 community in India is quickly becoming a global force, and with our initiative with Buidlers Tribe, we are demonstrating our commitment to fostering this talent, ” Shan Aggarwal, VP, Coinbase Ventures.

Registration for the pitch event is open for Indian Web3 startups. A select twenty-five innovative startups with sustainable ideas will be granted the opportunity to submit video pitches for review by the Coinbase Ventures team, and a shortlist of the top entries will be invited to pitch live on April 8th. The Pitch Session will include expert panelists namely Shan Aggarwal (VP, Coinbase Ventures), Surojit Chatterjee (Chief Product Officer, Coinbase), Manish Gupta (EVP Engineering, Coinbase), Pankaj Gupta (VP Eng and Site Lead, Coinbase India), Justin Mart (Chief Crypto Advisor), Raghu Mohan (Co-founder, Buidlers Tribe), and Pareen Lathia (Co-founder, Buidlers Tribe), who will be guiding the startups and providing them with valuable insights to enhance their solutions further.

“Buidlers Tribe’s aim has always been to support Web3 innovation in all its forms and give the innovators the right platform. This partnership with Coinbase Ventures is a step in this direction. We are glad that Coinbase Ventures has made a commitment the Indian Web3 ecosystem and to support and foster innovation among these startups. India has been at the forefront of the Web3 boom globally and has been bullish on the potential of this technology. We see a huge influx of global Web3 players recognizing this potential of the Indian developer ecosystem and are incredibly proud to stand with our fellow Web3 pioneers. We look forward to interesting projects that are building a sustainable decentralized space for all.” Pareen Lathia, Co-founder, Builders Tribe

The winning startups will stand to receive up to $1 million from Coinbase Ventures and select founders will receive up to $25K in grants along with mentorship support additionally, from Belief DAO. Belief DAO is a grants program that provides grant amounts of $5K - $25K with a quick disbursement period to help push founders, developers, and startups to meet their short-term goals.

The applications to apply for this event are open - https://coinbase.buidlerstribe.com/#

About Coinbase:

Coinbase is building the cryptoeconomy – a more fair, accessible, efficient, and transparent financial system enabled by crypto. Coinbase started in 2012 with the radical idea that anyone, anywhere, should be able to easily and securely send and receive Bitcoin. Today, Coinbase offers a trusted and easy-to-use platform for accessing the broader cryptoeconomy.

About Buidlers Tribe:

Buidlers Tribe is an incubator that takes founders/startups from idea/proof-of-concept/MVP stage and works with them to build companies. They focus on Web3 companies and are platform agnostic. They vet appropriate startups for investors according to the investor’s needs and have access to various experts in the blockchain field. For more details, visit: https://buidlerstribe.com/

PayPal Plans to Roll Out Direct Sales of Cryptocurrency

PayPal, along with Venmo - its mobile payment service, is reportedly planning to offer direct sales of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to its 300 million+ users globally, said a report by Coindesk, citing three people privy to the matter. Notably, PayPal has a longstanding business relationship with Coinbase.

According to the report, PayPal is looking to offer buying and selling of crypto and said the service could be expected "in the next three months, maybe sooner.".

Citing a well-placed industry source, the report said that Paypal is going to allow "buys and sells of crypto" directly from PayPal and Venmo and may have some sort of a built-in wallet functionality so one can store cryptocurrencies in there.

About Paypal subsidiary, Venmo, it alone handled US$12 billion in transactions in the first quarter of 2018. Venmo is a type of peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platform with a mobile app that enables sending money easily among friends. It required No credit card, no wallet, no fees besides just linking the app to a debit card and to spend'em.

It is unclear which or how many cryptocurrencies would be available, said the report further.The industry source, as per Coindesk, said they expected PayPal "would be working with multiple exchanges to source liquidity."

As of the end of 2019, PayPal had 305 mmillion active users, whereas Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the U.S., has 11.7 million users. And Binance, one of the world’s largest, has only 15 million.

Notably, in October last year Paypal had withdrew itself from Libra Association, the Facebook-initiated crypto project, to instead “continue to focus on advancing our existing mission and business priorities as we strive to democratize access to financial services for underserved populations."

With Coinbase, which is also a crypto-exchange, PayPal has a partnership that allows users (in North America and Europe) to withdraw and deposit cash between the two platforms.

In an interview with CoinDesk earlier this year, PayPal Chief Technology Officer Sri Shivananda said the company wanted its own “perspective and view on [blockchain] technology itself to see how it can help us contribute to the concept of creating an open digital payments platform that can serve everyone.”

Coinbase Becomes First Bitcoin Based ‘Unicorn’ Startup

Becoming a $1 billion startup and attaining the "unicorn" prefix is on the vision board of almost every startup. But, it takes a lot of hard work and determination to achieve this feat and enter the Magna cum laude club for startups.

San Francisco-based Coinbase has recently become the first Bitcoin startup to enter the unicorn startup club after it successfully raised a whopping $100 million at a private valuation of $1.6 billion that includes the capital raised. The investment round saw the participation of Draper Associates, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Spark Capital, and was led by venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners.

Starting its journey in 2012, Coinbase achieved its unicorn status in just five years. During its half a decade journey, the startup which began as a simple Bitcoin wallet service has progressed on and ventured into brokerage space, opening online exchanges where traders can sell or swap crypto coins.

In previous funding rounds, the startup, which claims to have served over 9.2 M customers across 32 countries, had raised $117 million at a private valuation of about $500 million. This figure alone had made Coinbase the third most well financed Bitcoin startup in the world, after Circle and 21. And now, with its latest funding round and achieving the Unicorn startup feat, there's no stopping Coinbase when it comes to the Bitcoin space.

So far 2017 has proven to be an exceptional one for cryptocurrencies. The year saw Bitcoin making a comeback in big way and Ethereum, a rival cryptocurrency network, going down the slope. Bitcoin is currently trading at more than $3,400 per Bitcoin, a figure which is well above its previous 2013 highs in the $900 range.

According to Fortune, the total market value for cryptocurrencies and tokens combined has increased from just under $20 billion at the beginning of the year to more than $120 billion in just over 7 months.

Coinbase plans to invest its newly raised money towards strengthening its engineering and customer support teams, and opening a new office in New York for its professional trading operations. It also plans on using a part of the capital for further developing its Ethereum-based messaging and wallet app, Toshi that it launched last year.

Cryptocurrencies have caught the attention of investors like never before. Investment firms like Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, anf Union Square Ventures have recently seen a spurt in activity in backing so-called crypto hedge funds, like Metastable and Polychain Capital, that primarily invest in cryptocurrencies and digital tokens. Recently, Blockchain, a London-based cryptocurrency wallet provider, raised $40 million in a round led by GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet.