Coinbase has hired Durgesh Kaushik, a former head of Snap India, as the global crypto exchange wants to expand its reach in emerging markets including India, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed.
Kaushik joined Coinbase as Senior Director of Market Expansion and was tasked with helping the company launch in India and several other markets in Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, Middle East and America.
Reached for comment over the weekend, the company confirmed the development and said Kaushik will be joining the company on May 9.
“We are pleased to confirm that Durgesh Kaushik will be joining Coinbase on May 9 as our Senior Director of Market Expansion,” said Nana Murugesan, International Vice President, Business Development and Partners at Coinbase, said in a statement provided to TechCrunch by a company. spokesman.
Murugesan added: “[Kaushik’s] This appointment to a global leadership role is an important step towards our entry into India, as well as our mission to strengthen economic freedom around the world. In addition to our initial focus on launching in India, Durgesh will draw on its rich experience to assist us in penetrating other markets in APAC, EMEA and the Americas as demonstrated. displayed in recent blog post about our global expansion strategy. ”
Kaushik – who has previously worked at companies including Facebook and hyperlocal delivery service Dunzo, and co-founded a social video platform – is widely recognized for helping Snap turn around. its position in India. Under his leadership, the company has grown its monthly active user base in India to around 130 million, according to mobile insights firm Data.ai (formerly known as App Annie), up from about 30 million when Kaushik joined the company in April 2019.
He was tasked with helping the social media platform grow to 100 million users by Q1 or Q2 of 2021, according to an executive who worked with Snap officials. Kaushik announced his departure from Snap last month.
Kaushik’s appointment comes at a time when Coinbase is scrambling and in many ways feeling helpless, getting its eponymous cryptocurrency exchange service to operate in India. Publicly listed company announced the launch of Coinbase in India to much fanfare last month.
Coinbase last month launched in India with support for UPI, a payments railway built by a consortium of retail banks that has become the most popular way Indians transact online today. now. But on the same day, the National Payments Corporation of India, the payments body that oversees UPI, threw a ball at the company by asserting that it not aware of any crypto exchanges that use UPI. Three days later, Coinbase suspend support for UPI from the app and currently its users in this country have no way to top up their fiat currency.
NPCI, which is a special unit of the central bank of India (Reserve Bank of India) and RBI continue to put informal pressure on banks to create friction with transactions related to Cryptocurrency defies India’s Supreme Court lifting the ban imposed by the RBI on cryptocurrencies traded three years ago, according to an executive at a cryptocurrency exchange.
India Newspaper Economic Times last month’s report that several banks have approached and questioned the NPCI about the “shadow ban” on crypto-related transactions and are seeking an official directive. Reacting to the news clip, Brian Armstrong, co-founder and chief executive officer, speak: “Hard Questions and Good Questions for NPCI and RBI in India. Does their “shadow ban” violate the high court ruling? ”
Murugesan said the company is also looking for a new regional executive for India and South Asia.
