In recent years, the popularity of Bitcoin has increased. On the top of being accepted by over 4,00,000 merchants as a legit form of payment, many public personalities have come out in support of the Bitcoin system. For example, the tech legend, Bill Gates believes that it is a techno tour de force. He says, “Bitcoin is better than currency in that you don’t have to be physically in the same place and, of course, for large transactions, currency can get pretty inconvenient.” Hailing Bitcoin as the next unstoppable technology, Bill perceives the future of financial transactions as digital, universal and almost free”. Bitcoin is the currency of the Internet worldwide distributed and decentralized digital money.
On the whole, there are three eras of currency: commodity based, politically based, and now, math based. Bitcoin is the first implementation of a concept called crypto-currency. Crypto-currency is the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions rather than a central authority. This means that Bitcoin is encrypted in a way that prevents it from being copied or counterfeited. A potential lad, along with his collaborates, was on a mission to spread awareness about Bitcoin. While at a meet-up of delegates about the same, there came a question from attendees on where to buy Bitcoins. This impelled Sathvik Vishwanath, Co-founder and CEO, to establish an all-in-one platform for trading Bitcoins, known as Unocoin. The meeting where it all started still exists and they have continued to organize meet-ups once a month and have continued spreading the awareness about Bitcoin.
The Intellect behind the Innovation
Sathvik’s entrepreneurial journey started by being an attendee then host of India Bitcoin meetup group in Bangalore, which now has now 300+ members. He eventually founded a company in the name of Unocoin Tech Private Limited that aims to bring Bitcoin awareness to the public. This company after being an organizer of the Global Bitcoin Conference in Dec 2013 – the first ever Bitcoin conference in India, has launched a web service called Unocoin.com which emphasizes in providing Bitcoin services that includes storage, buying and selling of Bitcoins, thereby advancing and accelerating the pursuit of Bitcoin technology.
Prior to his entrepreneurial plunge, Sathvik has worked as a Co-Founder in the renowned tech firm VentureNext Inc. He has also worked as a CRM Technical Analyst at Cognizant assisting PHP and MySQL based projects for implementation of workflow for testing software. Sathvik has over 15 years of entrepreneurial experience building software systems in the financial and virtual reality industry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering in the Electronics and Telecommunication domain. He further complemented his skills with a degree in Master of Business and Information Technology from University of Melbourne.
Sathvik Explicates Bitcoin and Unocoin
According to Sathvik, Bitcoin is the currency for the Internet. The credit card that we use for online transactions was invented even before the Internet came into existence. The use of credit card for daily payment transactions can expose the user to probable security and privacy threats.
“If Internet was country – then the currency for that country would be Bitcoin and it allows users to do fast and free transactions and without the need for middlemen to process the transaction,” asserts Sathvik. Unocoin is the trading platform for Bitcoin where Indians can securely buy, sell, store, use and accept Bitcoin. It has 270,000+ users and processes more than 600M INR every month. In just 3 years since inception, the company has drawn more than 30 top investors from 5 countries. Unocoin is responsible for industry leading innovations such as the Bitcoin Systematic Buying Plan (SBP), Bitcoin Point of Sale (POS) App and Bitcoin Over-The- Counter trading (OTC). In September 2016, Unocoin has raised $2 million in a Pre Series-A round, the highest total raised for a digital currency venture in Indian history. Funding was sourced from well-known Indian entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures along with prominent international investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future, Bitcoin Capital, Huiyin Ventures and FundersClub to move faster towards its vision of Making Money Simple through its mission Bringing Bitcoin to Billions.
Envisioning Uniformity in Currency with Unocoin
It’s Sathvik’s hard work and diligence that, ever since its inception, Unocoin has been evolving rapidly and is bringing the advantage of the Bitcoin technology to the critical masses. The team at Unocoin follows strict KYC and AML standards to keep its end-to-end processes compliant and secure for their clients. Unocoin has recently expanded its services to provide merchant gateway for online merchants with benefits of no-volatility risk, 0% transaction fee and no charge-backs.
As a verified user of Unocoin, you will be able to trade, transact with, accept and store bitcoin. You can send Bitcoins to your friend’s email address (who may not have an Unocoin wallet), request Bitcoins from a friend (who may not have an Unocoin wallet), and address book option to store multiple wallet addresses, even generate paper wallets to keep your Bitcoins safe and then easily import those addresses to your address book. Now you may also top-up your mobile/DTH directly from your Unocoin account by paying through Bitcoin.
Why Bitcoins?
Going by what seems to be people’s favourite feature of Bitcoin – the dramatic increase in price and its future potential to keep increasing in value, as unlike all other currencies Bitcoin is a deflationary currency. As an asset class, it has been voted as top preference owing to its virtual and decentralized nature. It has been largely compared to gold and even sometimes called “Virtual Gold” or “Gold 2.0” Bitcoin can be used exactly as money anywhere in the globe, and it gives you the freedom to control your finances.
Unocoin is India’s most popular Bitcoin Company that helps you explore the Bitcoin technology and its endless possibilities. It’s all about Sathvik’s dream of bringing Bitcoin to billions which bring the free and fast transactions, and hence making the money simple for a common man. At the core of Unocoin lies its innovation and a dedicated team with a passion towards building world class products centered on Bitcoin ecosystem.
Sathvik’s Advice to the New Entrants
Sathvik asserts that an entrepreneurial journey is never smooth and one must try it if their passion outweighs their professional career and their personal relationships. He says, “While the rest of the world sees you as the owner of the business, only you will eventually understand that you are subordinate to your vendors/customers/employees/investors/ and every other stakeholder of your company. Nurture and address your work in such a way that your passion gets reflected upon it.”
Sathvik Vishwanath: The Man Who brought the Bitcoin Revolution to Billions
