Investment in the cryptocurrency market grew from about $200 million to nearly $40 billion in India in the past year, according to Chainalysis.

India is among the world’s biggest holders of bullion, with households owning more than 25,000 tonnes of precious metal.

Now not only gold aficionados’ are increasingly getting interested in cryptocurrencies, but this has also been despite the fact that the country has experienced a ban from the central bank in the past.

This ban has long been lifted by the Supreme Court, and now the country is preparing to make it an asset class.

“I’d rather put my money in crypto than gold. Crypto is more transparent than gold or property, and returns are more in a short period of time,” Richi Sood, a 32-year-old entrepreneur who shifted from gold to crypto, told Bloomberg.

“I am flying blind,” she added. “I have a risk-taking appetite, so I’m willing to take a risk of a ban.”

More than 15 million Indians are buying and selling crypto assets, fast catching up with the 23 million cryptocurrency traders in the US and far exceeding 2.3 million in the UK.

This growth is coming from the 10-35-year-old age group, according to Sandeep Goenka, co-founder of India’s first cryptocurrency exchange ZebPay.

“You go online, you can buy crypto, you don’t have to verify it, unlike gold.”

The latest World Gold Council data also indicated that Indian adults under age 34 have less appetite for gold than older consumers.

While the value of Indian crypto asset holdings is a tiny part of its gold market, the growth is clear, with the four biggest crypto exchanges seeing daily trading volume jumping to $102 million from $10.6 million a year ago, according to CoinGecko.

India’s $40 billion market now significantly trails China’s $161 billion, according to Chainalysis.

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