India’s crypto journey has been nothing short of a rollercoaster — and no one knows it better than Sathvik Vishwanath, Co-Founder & CEO of Unocoin, one of India’s oldest and most trusted Bitcoin exchanges, founded in December 2013.
In this episode of the Crypto Times Podcast, Sathvik sits down with Gopal to share the unfiltered story of building a crypto exchange in India from scratch — before the word “crypto” even existed, battling the RBI’s banking ban all the way to the Supreme Court, surviving 30% taxation & 1% TDS, and what he truly thinks about Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, and the future of crypto in India.
What we cover:
- How Sathvik discovered Bitcoin in 2012 while solving a PayPal fee problem
- Founding Unocoin at India’s first Bitcoin conference (2013)
- The RBI banking ban and their Supreme Court victory
- India’s 30% tax + 1% TDS — is relief coming?
- Why India ranks #1 in crypto adoption but lags in regulation
- Bitcoin price predictions & institutional adoption
- Real World Asset Tokenization, Stablecoins & DeFi — which narrative wins?
- One-word takes on Solana, Ethereum, XRP, Tron, Polygon & more
- Advice for crypto beginners in 2025