Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Living on Blockchain. Today we are speaking to Puneet. He’s the founder and CEO of CoinX.
Currently he’s a serial entrepreneur with expertise in fintech and web3. He’s passionate about simplifying crypto adoption and compliance. He’s been an active advocate for blockchain innovation and financial inclusion in this space.
He was also somebody who during the COVID time helped out with the crypto fund, crypto relief fund that was set up by Sandeep from Polygon. So this is a very interesting conversation and I know I say this about a lot of conversations but the way Puneet has tried to create an ecosystem around the platform CoinX is very interesting and the scale at which these guys are providing these services is commendable. So I can’t wait for you guys to hear this.
Let’s deep dive right in. Hi Puneet, thank you so much for making the time to speak to me today. How are you doing? I’m doing good Tarusha, thanks for inviting.
Pleasure is all mine. So for our listeners can you tell us a little about yourself Puneet, how you got into web3, how you got in with CoinX. I would love to learn a little more about the journey.
Sure, so I got started in web3 I think back in 2017 days and you know have been researching about the technology. I’m an engineer by background so started working on the technology side of things. Then when I was, so I was in college you know during those days.
So I started exploring this technology, working on the Ethereum code base and you know like it’s primarily an open source. So understanding you know how the entire architecture is built, reading the Ethereum white paper, Ethereum yellow paper, Bitcoin white paper etc. So that’s how I started entering into the space and you know like the entire while I was reading about it the entire technology looked very very interesting and this looked like very promising.
There were not many people around to talk about about this technology back then. So but however what happened was I was in an internship you know in Taiwan and there I mingled with few professors who were also interested in Bitcoin blockchain and were doing certain some things around mining. So I came back wrote a couple of research papers with them and you know like then go and turned into another organization where I contributed on their blockchain architecture.
So that’s how things started and I think back to back, back to back one after the other there were a lot of opportunities that kept me involved and since then you know like I’ve been full-time involved in the crypto space. Right so quite an organic journey like just from your college time you know you started reading about it and that’s how you got into Web3. I would love to also know what was that one thing about Web3 and you know you went through research and you talked to people but what was that one thing that really attracted you to this particular technology? So I think the entire part of bringing transparency and trust at the first place was very exciting.
So when I was learning and you know working around there so I was looking at the supply chain ecosystem. In fact I was you know like also working on an idea where the patient health records could be on blockchain and they can manage control of the data. They can share it with any doctors that they are going in and you know revoke access once their visit has been completed.
Plus how do we bring in you know like for example patients who are admitted in hospitals. How can they you know like ensure that the amount that they’re paying to the hospitals is for all the medicines that they have consumed. So all of those kind of things.
So you know like my grandmother was in hospital then so I was looking first hand in terms of what are the things that can go wrong in the Web2 space and when I was exploring blockchain I could see solutions for all those problems here. So I think that’s what hooked me to this technology and as and how I explored more I kept on looking at variety of use cases that can actually be solved but the core principle being about trust and transparency. Right.
I think usually those are the two things that really do attract people into this particular space because as it’s very core it’s supposed to be transparent it’s supposed to be decentralized and that can be a very big USP as against the status quo. So can you tell us a little about what inspired you to create a platform like Coinex and what gap were you trying to fill in the market? Sure. So previous to Coinex you know I was leading the Crypto Relief Fund.
If you remember back in 2021 when COVID was in a second wave and Sandeep from Pointone he started you know Crypto Relief saying that you know like this is the fund that is trying to help Indians fight COVID and this was the fund where Vitalik gave in billion dollars worth Shiba. So my role there was I was CEO of that fund managing the entire pool that was received and during that journey we did a lot of good things that helped you know India fight COVID. Some of the key things are you know like 1 in 10 people in India are vaccinated through this fund.
So I’m talking about like 165 million people that got benefited out of this and so and so on there are like many more achievements in but happy to maybe we can schedule another one to discuss that. But on the other yeah but on the other so other learning for me from there was I was involved with a lot of regulators and you know like people from the compliance industry. So this was an international organization set up.
We were working we were contributing foreign donations to NGOs registered in India and the quantum of fund was really high and hence I was dealing with the you know like some of the big fours from the industry their global blockchain teams some of the regulators here in India and you know like our entity is also based in UAE so regulators there and having discussed with a variety of people from different geographies what made me you know I built a conviction during that period is blockchain and the crypto industry wouldn’t you know like if you’re looking at onboarding the next million population onboarding the next you know like 10 million population onboarding the next 100 million population onto crypto it wouldn’t happen without regulation and compliance. So all these years I was you know like bit fanatic about the technology care it’s everything is decentralized you know like people will have control but speaking to these guys made me realize while this sounds fanatic but this might you know this will have a lot of consequences associated with it and that’s not how large population is you know like is nurtured at least for the next few years. So the transition phase from web 2 to web 3 will happen with regulation and compliance and I started looking more about the compliance side of things so that’s where you know like when I was researching around compliance about 15 odd countries had taxed cryptocurrencies already and India was you know becoming the 16th country which was taxing crypto.
So I started looking into the taxation space realize you know like it’s completely mayhem for one to calculate their own taxes and report it not just in India but anywhere across the world and you know I spoke to my regulator friends hey how do you help your clients you know like manage all of their compliance with respect to taxation realize that even they are using approximation and estimation methods and there’s no accurate mechanism to calculate the taxes plus it’s very painful to do it manually I think that was the reason I saw business opportunity there and also saw you know like firstly back in 2021-22 days like crypto was already you know like a lot of there were a lot of negative sides from the government related to that related to in the entire crypto side which included you know like ban in 2018 and an uplift of ban in 2020 and you know so so that was one angle and the reason of taxing cryptocurrencies was to see whether this industry even generates a substantial revenue for it to be put into an interest and to think about it so idea was here if people are not even able to report their income even if they want to the government will not generate large revenue from the space and it may lead to consequences right you know like this space has 10 problems and we are not even getting anything out of it why not just blanket ban it so that was the I think these two triggers a the business opportunity part b the larger cause was something that triggered me to build coin it and the idea is simple we basically help any retail investor situated in any part of the world to seamlessly calculate their entire capital gains or their taxes from crypto and then report it accordingly in their geography so that’s that’s largely the product that we have built in for the retail user and this is primarily for indian users no we started with india today we are live in about 100 countries and people anywhere across the world can use coin it and they will get customized reports for each of this geography now what do i mean by this is so law of crypto uh you know taxing crypto is very different in each of this geography uh so for example if you are an us listener and you uh you know are investing into crypto you can just use coin x to you know like get the reports and these reports will be as per the local us laws you would get exactly the forms that are required to file your returns in us versus someone in uk they will get again uh you know like a customized report based on uk laws and someone in india would receive uh the reports as per the indian laws so we support 100 such countries and people anywhere across the world can just seamlessly you know like download their entire tax data from coin that’s brilliant so you know it’s just adding more ease into people’s lives and i think that is very very important if they’re going to get into a space that they might not perhaps fully understand absolutely and it’s difficult to keep a track of you know like the changing laws and the variety of transactions have different taxation treatments for example staking has a different taxation treatment airdrop has a different one normal spot market transactions have different futures and margins have another you know like there’s other way of treating them so it becomes difficult for an individual to keep on tracking uh you know like all these types and then understanding what is the taxation under each of this type and then reported make it into a custom format which the government asked for so this becomes like completely mayhem and i go to an extent saying if you have crypto crypto transactions um it becomes almost impossible to do it on your own after a point right yeah way too many transactions lots of confusion i think absolutely true uh because there is a lot of weakness when it comes to uh the laws in certain places and moreover i think you know not majority of us wouldn’t be filing our own uh taxes any which way so you know doing that for just crypto uh is is like a very tedious task it sounds uh very tedious to sort of execute so might as well have the expert uh do it right absolutely so how what how does it uh really work like are you uh deploying teams in different countries are you using ai um is there an algorithm in play how does it really work and what does uh what makes your platform uh very unique as compared to say other platforms that are for tax compliant so there are two three parts of this question i’ll take one by one each of them so how it works for users is uh you know like we support about 150 plus exchanges on our platform about 100 plus chains 80 plus wallets so all uh now what this means for an individual investor who is investing in crypto is basically let’s say you might be having your transactions on binance metamask um so you can just simply connect both your binance account and the metamask account on coinec and when i say connect this can again happen via apis or it can happen via you downloading the trade report from your binance and just uploading it on coinex and for blockchain related transactions you just have to paste your address the receiving address um you know of a particular chain so that’s that’s how simple it is to connect any platform where you have transactions on coinex this entire step hardly takes in few uh you know like seconds in fact most of our users um you know once they’ve connected their entire data gets populated within five seconds so this is where all your transactions from the start gets populated on coinex we process all of it uh you know like help you uh get a gist of all your transactions all your portfolio what was your buy price what is your sale price what is the profit on each and every transaction all of those insights users can get without even uh you know like even subscribing to the platform yet so once they have taken a look at all of this data then they can just make a payment to download the report and these reports will be delivered to their email which they can use to file returns so this is largely how it works and there is an ai play to this because you know like once you’re uploading the transactions the platform automatically understands whether the transaction is a spot market whether the transaction is a you know like futures options whether it’s a funding interest for futures whether it’s a repayment that you’re doing and for your margin whether it’s a staking reward that whether it’s a staking interest that you have received so there are 190 plus types of transactions that automatically gets categorized on coinex and you know like you just so basically everything is ready for you so once you all you have to do is just plug and play upload your data and within seconds everything is done all your all your portfolio is fetched and yep you can just simply download the reports and file it you know in your respective geography so this is largely how it works for an individual now for us as a company you know like we have teams across the globe we have teams set up now in canada which are looking at our northern america and canada largely you know like the entire northern america continent and we also have teams set up in ue which is looking at you know like the veena region primarily and we here from india are looking at our south asia based expansions so that’s largely how we have positioned the teams today and it’s growing and aggressively we are you know like onboarding teams across the globe to help us penetrate into more geography that’s it we we have partnered with a lot of exchanges so for example bitgit is one of the you know like among top 10 exchanges in the world based on their coin market cap ranking so we are uh you know official tax partners of bitgit now what this means is any bitgit user can simply go to tax api which is a button inside your app and there you will be able to generate the api and coinex is the official partner where you can just put the api to fetch your transactions so uh you know like coinex is positioned inside the midget application and very soon we are announcing many more exchanges so idea is by uh you know in next couple of months among uh like five out of top 10 exchanges globally would be uh you know like partnering in with coinex and then putting them putting coinex inside their application for all their users so this is largely how we also acquire a lot of our users and help them with you know like calculating their taxes right so you know you’re going on you you guys are growing horizontally as well as vertically with different geographies as well as partners with different exchanges i think that is a wonderful way to sort of expand can you elaborate a little bit more about your team how big is the team currently and where are all are you guys uh situated do you have physical offices sure today i think coinex is about 40 people and uh as i mentioned like we have team both locally here in india and globally uh so majority of the team members are here in india and it’s a remote setup so people are working in from home so they are spread across the entire subcontinent and you know are living in multiple places we do also have an office in the eastern part of india where it’s it’s kind of a founder’s office where primarily i spend most of the time and yep largely apart from the indian team there are um now team in uae in canada so again they are working in from there and then largely helping us with our global expansion and product awesome uh so now that you know we’ve talked a little about what coinex does and about the team can you tell us a little about what what is the next big milestone that you’re looking forward to when it comes to coinex yeah so um i think b2c we are killing it and there are lots of users more than 500 000 users already onboarded onto the platform and you know like they are using coinex for their taxes the idea now is we have also come up with our enterprise version this enterprise product is largely that helps uh you know like companies dealing in crypto to be able to account for all their transactions and be on top of their finances so this is uh you know this could be these set of companies could be a the funds that are investing in crypto be any dap or project which is uh you know like paying salaries in crypto or receiving their revenues in crypto or receiving investments in crypto so largely any company that has crypto on their balance sheet could be a consulting agency could be um you know like an nft protocol could be a marketplace could be a foundation of a protocol could could basically be anyone you know that has crypto on balance sheet so they um you know we have built an entire accounting and bookkeeping software uh which is like quickbooks for crypto where you can completely automate your entire uh accounting for your business and be on top of your complete finances understand where your profits are where your losses are where your largely expenses are um you know like track your invoices uh manage all your vendors so all of it at one place so this is largely the product that we have built and we are onboarding our customers onto this so i think the next big thing for us is to scale this and you know like be the de facto crypto accounting platform globally um you know for companies that are building in this space that sounds wonderful that’s a wonderful way to put it we are a quickbooks for any company that has crypto on its sheets uh balance sheet so i think uh that that is a great way for you guys to expand your services from b2c to b2b but that is in itself quite a leap wouldn’t you say like usually consumer driven products they try to stick to their and uh you know companies catering to b2b or b2g perhaps they they stick to the niche that they are working on uh what made you feel that uh you know it’s the right time for you guys to make this leap and move or spread across b2b and b2c sure i think for us largely um you know like the infrastructure so basically like let’s say if a retail investor has a transactions on binance metamask and let’s the same is the layer for companies dealing in so the entire infrastructure that we built to get the transactions categorize them track it and understand things is largely the same for both of these sites plus when we are doing taxation we are already doing an accounting because you know like once i have accounted for all your transactions only then i would be able to understand him like what profits what losses you made and accordingly give you your tax so large part of it was already being done uh we just had to work around in terms of giving businesses complete flexibility in terms of how do they want to account for these transactions and you know like this involved creating the product um ground up understanding you know the entire us gap standards the double accounting methods so a lot of this but then uh for us it was a natural you know extension uh at coinx a lot of founders that came in to use our b2c product wanted us to to also solve this for the company so that’s that’s how naturally the demand came in and then we started picking on that and just launched this as well and we’re seeing a good traction in fact our b2c is also largely uh you know like kind of scaled and we have a lot of users coming in on a daily basis on the platform a lot of partnerships with exchanges so you know like that has uh pretty much scaled in now and it was a time to look at something else so for the two years we have been building the b2c and scaling that up and for the last six months we primarily spend a lot of time in the accountings right i think you know this is what i wanted you to say when i asked you this that pretty much the infrastructure that is created for the users because the layers that are being used for these transactions are the same whether it is consumer or enterprise so it is it is a very natural progression for you guys to move in that direction uh and uh that that is sensible uh at times entrepreneurs will move in way too many directions at the same time at the kind of break what they already have as well so that that is not the case with you because the the same logistics that are perhaps being utilized for you to provide service to the consumer are pretty much alike and akin to what you would do perhaps with enterprises absolutely so because you’re dealing with um you know these financial transactions and the data how do you how do you ensure that there is security of data and uh that and there is a certain amount of accuracy uh there as well and it is maintained for the user because you are integrating with multiple exchanges and wallets uh so how does that work so we take security very seriously and from the very start of you know like writing the first set of codes at coinx so and i can just brag about it or just say that hey you know coinx systems are secure but uh users would take it with a pinch of salt so what we have done is we uh and not just uh you know like we just don’t say that we are secure in fact there are for it companies or for software-based companies internationally there are two certifications uh you know like which are done by an external organization they come they audit the entire system they look at all the details in fact to get one of these certifications it requires to pass at least 1900 check to be able to get this certification and these certificates are like iso 27001 and sock 2 so coinx uh i’m happy to share is both
ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified. So this means that we have passed all of these 1900 plus checks. There are external auditors that have reviewed our systems, policies, procedures, management, you know, related to security and compliance side of things.
And they have tested it and then validated and given us the certification. So this peak, you know, our, you know, our commitment towards making the platform more secure and then bringing CoinX to an international standard of security, which is widely accepted in the ecosystem. Plus, whenever we partner with an exchange, you know, they have their own vendor onboarding checklist and a lot of transactions would be transferred into CoinX and we have already partnered with some of the biggest exchanges in the world.
So not only just by external auditors, but also by the external, you know, like exchange team members have also vetted and validated the systems down. So this is part A. Part B is, you know, like this is the entire certification part is an annual effort. But within the year, we constantly keep on engaging with pen testers to ensure that our systems, you know, like are not vulnerable.
And if any, we immediately act on it and then, you know, like fix it down. So these are some of the, you know, like activities that we keep on internally at CoinX to ensure that, you know, our systems are secure. When it comes to accuracy, our systems are again back-tested and validated.
The reports that we generate before even we go live for any country is validated by a local professional. So, you know, like CoinX has an international taxation team. These are team again from ex-employees of big fours of the world.
And, you know, like they put in a sample data, check the output, validate that the numbers are working and, you know, like we also invite external teams to come and check the data and validate whether the outputs are running and fine. So to ensure basically the accuracy of the system. So CoinX, in fact, are the reports that we generate and have also stood out in terms of, you know, like when a lot of users get in scrutiny from income tax departments, etc.
So these reports also stood in there, where and, you know, like when people submitted these reports, the department basically accepted the numbers that were there. So that speaks about the accuracy and the, you know, like the results that we provide in CoinX. So I think, I hope that, you know, gave you some insight around the security and the accuracy part.
Absolutely. I think that gives our listeners a good idea about how seriously you take security and accuracy when it comes to the data that you’re dealing with. Now I want to ask something that is more on the macro side of things because, you know, the taxation arena, so to say, is very dynamic and it keeps changing.
But what are the kind of trends that you foresee in crypto taxation as governments worldwide are kind of scrambling to legitimize the space a bit more? Sure. So a lot of these governments or a lot of governments are looking crypto from an asset point of view and are introducing in capital gains on it. So I’d see this as a standard across, you know, like most of the countries where they tax crypto as part of, you know, like something like you’re investing in stock.
And if you’re generating returns out of it, you pay capital gains on it. So largely this is one common trend. Second, a lot of countries have come up with taxation framework, but, you know, like the crypto space is a bit complex as there is DeFi, there is NFT, people are using crypto to make payments and, you know, there is the entire exchange market, which is for futures options.
So there is no one rule that can help categorize the entire ecosystem of crypto. So what I’m seeing is companies, countries are, you know, like evolving their entire taxation framework and trying to bring different set of guidelines related to different types of transactions. So, for example, staking interest or an airdrop could be another income, but investments that you’re making in crypto and then further selling it, booking profits could be capital gains.
And your investments from stock market, from derivatives, options, margins could be like a speculation income. So, you know, like there are countries which are bringing in clarity in terms of how do you deal with different types of transactions in crypto and how do you basically tax it accordingly. So this is another trend that I’m seeing.
And yeah, I think in most of the countries it is at par with their existing capital gains for stock market and for any transactions that’s happening in the other income or people who are receiving salaries, it is at par with the salary structure in their country. So I think these are the top three, four trends that I’m looking at when I’m looking at, you know, like different countries that are researching in crypto, that are taxing in crypto, sorry. And the tax percentage varies a lot from country to country, but I think it’s standard.
That’s how exactly also, you know, like for example, UAE is a tax-free country, but India taxed crypto or any gains, any income, not just crypto. US does also tax any other income. Germany taxed heavily on income.
So I think that has been standard there for years. So the similar trend is expected in crypto that different countries will be having different percentages of taxation, but largely these are the trends when we look at crypto taxation. Yeah, I think I completely agree with you there.
There are certain common threads that kind of run parallel no matter which country we are speaking about. Can, you know, because you’ve been doing this for a while, can you tell us a little about the kind of perhaps misconceptions that users might have vis-a-vis crypto taxation that you’ve come across? Yep. There’s a list of misconceptions.
I would go in with, you know, the important ones. The first, a lot of people assume that, you know, like if I’m doing a crypto to crypto transaction, that event is not taxable. I would only have to pay taxes once I’m withdrawing the funds to my bank account or doing a fiat trade.
That is not the case. Crypto to crypto transaction is a taxable event and this is standard across most of the country. So this is a very important part where a lot of people miss and they think that, hey, you know, I haven’t converted it yet into my bank account.
I haven’t booked the profits yet. So that’s not the case. When you’re doing a crypto to crypto transaction, you’re technically doing two transactions wherein you’re selling your coin and then reinvesting that coin to buy another coin.
So whenever you’re doing a crypto to crypto, you’re already booking profit and all the returns that you’ve generated is being reinvested into the space. So that is one. Second, a lot of people, again, you know, assume so misconceptions again can be localized to each country.
For example, here in India, people believe that they do not have to declare their crypto if it’s, you know, if it’s on a decentralized wallet. And this is this is also a common trend across the world where people think that they only have to pay taxes on decentralized exchange transactions, not the decentralized ones. Again, not the case.
Any crypto that you hold could be in any platform. Is liable to pay taxes. So that is the other part of it.
Third part is, you know, like a lot of people again doing B2B sort of transactions and, you know, like just buying and selling it off, doing high frequency trades. Even they might assume in that, you know, like this does not fall in under the crypto ambit. I’m doing a high frequency trade.
So I’ll be just declaring it as for my stocks. So even that that doesn’t work that way. Like anything that has to deal with crypto, even the USDT coins, a lot of people think that USDT is a dollar.
It’s like dollars. It’s not. USDT is a crypto.
And even USDT trades are at par with the crypto, you know, like the way with crypto deals. So I think these are the important ones. Yeah, I think especially the one with the USDT aspect and crypto to crypto transactions, I think those are a few that I’ve heard a lot as well.
And I’ve seen people sort of act accordingly. So it’s good for you to like dispel those misconceptions. Now, I want to like touch a little upon the kind of hurdles that you face while scaling CoinX because I’m sure that there were many.
And, you know, because you are, you know, you are in a very compliance heavy ecosystem, so to say, because, you know, the compliance keeps changing and it can be very tedious. Then also, moreover, you know, there are there is a certain dynamism to it. Plus the fact that, you know, you are a platform that is actually helping users be compliant.
There must have been many hurdles while you were creating and launching CoinX and then scaling it. So I would love to talk a little about that. I want you to shed a little light on those challenges and how did you sort of overcome them? Perhaps, you know, entrepreneurs who are building in the payment spaces can, you know, take some inspiration from your own.
Sure, I think the largest challenge was, you know, or challenge or opportunity either way is the business that we are in is an ops heavy business. When I say ops heavy, we do not have to go lift things and then put it out as logistic companies out. But it’s a data ops heavy business.
Now, what do I mean by this is every day we see a new type of coin, we see a new type of transaction, new products that exist in the crypto space and we have to build the system. It cannot be that, hey, you know, I’ve built CoinX today and I’ll just stop the development and use the software for next five years. Won’t work that way.
Every day we have to keep on updating our systems to be able to, you know, like track and automatically categorize the new types of transactions that are existing in the space. The new wallets where people have transactions, the new exchanges where people are going and transacting on the new product within an exchange that people are utilizing. For example, an exchange might have just started with spot and futures, but later on added, you know, like systematic investment plans or added, you know, like some quests, some campaigns, some other products.
We have to go and encompass all of these types of products that an exchange is building, plus all the types of products that the industry is building overall. So that is a heavy business. And so that is on the industry side.
On the regulation side, countries are coming up with regulations. So more and more countries are coming up with taxation frameworks. Existing countries which have already tagged crypto, they are updating their laws constantly.
And we are live in a hundred countries. It’s not about just two, three countries that we have to keep a track on, but rather a hundred countries that we have to track on a daily basis to understand what’s happening, where and what’s changing with, which is again an observey. And we do have a dedicated team just to do this.
So I think, yeah, these are largely the challenges running a business like us. And then the way that we solve them is, you know, like it’s simple having research teams in house, having, you know, like dedicated teams that just keep on researching about the new product, having a strong relation with exchanges so that before even launching the product, in fact, with a lot of exchanges, even before the product is launched, we are already updated with the taxation framework for those. So when they are testing in beta, we are also working with them to test the taxation frameworks out.
So a lot of these types of things happen. And I think it’s all about building that relation and building a credible team that can help you achieve this. Right.
This is wonderful to hear. I think it’s a, as you mentioned, this is something that is observable, but obviously it comes down to how you’re scaling and how you’re really putting in the management play. So this is wonderful to know and what you’re doing is fabulous.
But now I want to perhaps again, look at the market a little bit and ask you something that is more on the macro side. With the advent of AI, we’ve kind of talked a little about how you guys are already utilizing AI in your processes. But I think from perhaps just somebody who’s been around in this space for some time, how do you see AI really changing the way, you know, Web3 ecosystem kind of functions, what kind of startups come out of it? And also how do you think it would have an impact on compliance and taxation? Your personal take here, I would love to understand.
Sure. So I think AI has an important role to play in overall the Web3 ambit. And Web3, you know, like technically is not just about blockchain and crypto.
It involves AI. It involves Internet of Things. It involves, you know, like AR, VR, augmented reality, mixed reality, like together, all of it would contribute in towards what we call Web3.
So AI has a very important role to play because the way I look at things is blockchain acts as the secure database, you know, for holding the data, but able to be able to get insights out of the data to be able to, you know, like better utilize the data you need intelligence. So that is where anything that has to do with, you know, like data which is on blockchain and then getting insights out of it, getting, you know, like understanding patterns, understanding trends, understanding, you know, like how people are dealing with that data. So all of it is all of these use cases is where, you know, like AI has to basically there would be a great AI play.
And when it comes to regulation and compliance, even we have, you know, like a lot of data at Quenix because these are like, you know, like users are transacting day in, day out. In fact, in last year, we have processed about, I think more than 350 million transactions. So, you know, like understanding those then being able to create insights out of it and helping users understand, you know, like a lot of their insights on their portfolio is an interesting aspect.
And, you know, like that gives users a very insightful information in terms of how they want to deal with their entire set of transactions, what are the things that they can make better and what are the things that can help them, you know, like maximize their profits or minimize their losses. Right. I think I’ve recently talked to quite a few founders and we’ve talked about how AI can be really helpful with trading.
Is there anything that, you know, you are looking to perhaps build with AI in the future? Does this technology excite you enough to perhaps take that leap? Build AI is a far, you know, like far, far stretch, but we might definitely and we are using AI at CoinX to basically like, you know, get a lot of insights and automate a lot of the categorization of transactions and giving our users. So, later on, we do have plans of giving actionable insights to users. So, a lot of AI play would happen there, but building an AI is far-fetched.
No, not building an AI. I meant more on the lines of, you know, building with AI and something separate from CoinX. Oh, yeah, definitely.
We’re already doing it and we’ll continue doing it. In fact, for example, so I’ll give you certain things where we use AI. We have built a chatbot, you know, which is trained for more than 80 countries now.
And when I say trained for more than 80 countries, we’re basically trained that bot for taxation framework in more than 80 countries. So, all you can do is just go chat with it in any language, could be a regional language of India, could be Spanish, could be German, could be English, any language. Just, you know, how do you chat with your lawyer or your accountant? You can just chat with it in the very same fashion.
You can just talk about your trades. You can ask what, you know, like I did, I received in a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars a drop of arbitrum. How would I tax it? Anything.
You can just go chat with it and the bot gives you answers, helping you understand your case and as per your local law. So, you can say to the bot that I have received a drop of a thousand dollars of arbitrum. I’m living in India.
How do I tax it here? And you will receive precise information which you’re looking for from the bot. Awesome. So, you’re already utilizing AI within the CoinX ecosystem and I think more power to you guys with what you’ve done and what you’re planning to do.
Now, you know, because we are really running short on time, I would love to ask you two more questions before we wrap this up. Love to get perhaps your advice for builders in this space, folks who are already building. What would be your two cents for them building in the current market where Bitcoin is going from, you know, it has reached that milestone of 100k and it keeps going back and forth, but there is a lot of excitement in the market.
What would be your advice to these entrepreneurs? So, based on the past experience, what I see is when, you know, like the bull run comes in, a lot of people want to enter in this space and they start building in, you know, like web 3 version of any and every web 2 application. So, this I would recommend or I would advise builders not to please do that. You know, like not every web 2 application has to be web 3 eyes.
You know, like there are, look for real problems, look for, you know, like real use cases and build solutions accordingly. CoinX, we haven’t yet put CoinX on a web 3 system. It’s a complete web 2 SaaS catering to the web 3 industry.
So, it does not require that everything has to be on blockchain. That’s not what the industry wants. The industry wants the problems to be solved in a better way.
And, you know, like, so please research about what you’re building and who your users are. Speak to them, understand their pain problem and make it in a way which, you know, like, if you’re building a consumer application which helps onboard web 3 users or web 2 users on web 3, please make the experience very seamless for them without them having to go through all the hassle. I think that’s very good advice.
Don’t blindly follow trends and then build for the user so that they don’t have to really source a lot of food before they can actually use your product. Now, like I said, and I’ll stay true to my promise that this is the last question that I’ll ask you, but this is something that I ask everybody who comes on the show. You are obviously someone who organically moved towards web 3. But if you had to stay, perhaps give advice to somebody who is still agonizing over whether this is a really legitimate space, you know, just diving into the web 3 ecosystem.
What would be your advice to folks like that so that they can truly start living on blockchain? Oh, sure. I think that depends on a lot of factors, but one of the important key motivation factors for someone could be money. So one is you potentially can make a lot of better money, not just by investing in crypto, but also by, you know, like working with web 3 companies.
B, exposure. The level of exposure that crypto companies or the entire web 3 ecosystem gives you is purely incomparable with any other industry. I’ve been on the web 2 side.
I’ve been on the web 3 side. Web 2 is pretty cluttered. But in web 3, you can literally, you know, like see Vitalik, who is founder of Ethereum, just walking next to you without even, you know, like a guardrail or a bodyguards kind of a system.
So web 3 is very open. Web 3 founders are very open. And web 3 as a space gives you a lot of exposure.
So first motivation being money, second being exposure, third, giving you opportunities to travel a lot because web 3 is largely, you know, like happening in almost some large markets across the world. And you get to meet diverse people across whether you’re attending a conference here in Bangalore or you’re attending a conference, you know, like the Davos or in Thailand or in Singapore or in UAE, basically every, every way that you go, you would find people across the geography. So you would be able to get a global exposure on what’s happening in the space.
So yeah, I think largely, these were, you know, like largely, these are the three motivations that I see personally, if I’m looking to understand a new space or get into a new space, I would look for these things primarily. And yeah, I believe this might be motivating for people who are looking to enter in this space. Awesome, as good a way to end this episode as any.
So thank you so much, once again, for being on the show. Any parting words before we wrap this up? Yeah, I think for people who are, you know, like looking to enter into the space from investment point of view or from making money point of view, please do understand that you might have heard stories of people investing in crypto and the next day they have a Lamborghini standing right in front of their house. This is not the case.
Crypto will not make you, you know, like don’t enter into the crypto ecosystem with an expectation that I just want to make a quick money and then leave this. Rather, build conviction, research on what you’re investing, check the fundamentals, right? And then stay long, you know, like invest in for long. So that would be my advice for people who are looking at investing in crypto.
I think that’s wonderful advice. Thank you so much, once again, Puneet for making the time to speak to me today. This has been a really wonderful.
Thanks, Tarusha.