Investors see the Bitcoin dip as an investment opportunity: Mridul Gupta, Founding Partner, CoinDCX

Why is Bitcoin so volatile right now?

This type of market cycle happens every few years. Bitcoin and crypto are global asset classes. Much of the price movement is driven by macroeconomic developments: risk-on, risk-off sentiment in the US and in global asset classes, geopolitical unrest and the latest tariff war are key factors. There has been a lot of price decline and correction, but the long-term view remains very strong, supported by regulatory developments around the GENIUS Act, crypto market structures in the US, and regulations in multiple regions. We have seen an increase in the adoption of leaders at the grassroots level in most countries, including India. In fact, the price correction offers investors a great opportunity to enter the space. Many of these investors are restarting their SIPs and new portfolio deployments in this asset class. So there will be more AUM coming into the market as the price correction takes place, and once the AUM and ETF flows come in, we will see the price continue to rise over a longer period of time. But it is difficult to predict when this will happen.

How are investors currently reacting to the trend?

With the decline, we haven’t seen any pressure. If you look at the on-chain data or data from centralized platforms, people are continuing to own their holdings and SIPs in Bitcoin. This is a very strong sign that there is good investor and private confidence in this asset class.

People see every market downturn as an opportunity. They have seen that BTC can reach $120,000 and can also reach $250,000. So every downtrend, every sell-off that happens, they look at it as an opportunity to develop their portfolios because they can then acquire them at a lower cost. We mainly see people investing in Bitcoin and Ethereum. They continue to build their portfolios and reduce their purchase costs of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Then there is a growing need and awareness of SIP in crypto. Many people on our platform do not invest through direct purchase, but through SIPs. They will continue to build their Bitcoin holdings with SIP offers. Our SIP users continue to grow. They have become a significant portion of our total transaction users. Finally, many users want to double down on the large cap tokens like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana versus the long tail tokens around meme coins and L2s, blockchain.

How would you assess the 2026 budget in terms of the expectations and realities of the ecosystem?

The main expectation was to waive taxation and ease the burden of capital gains on investors. Neither action has been taken yet, but we remain hopeful that India will change its laws and come up with a better way to regulate the asset class. There is a lot of action being taken these days, whether it is creating jobs in the crypto economy or actual investments moving abroad. Many founders and startups have disappeared from Dubai. A lot is happening in the field of offshore exchanges. So Indian capital continues to go out. That acceptance is now penetrating the right policy circles and think tanks. So we have taken a step forward in accepting that Indian investors’ capital will move abroad if tax laws remain so strong and out of step with other asset classes. But how to structure this and how to adjust the implementation plan has not yet been written down.

What are CoinDCX’s plans for 2026 going forward?

The biggest impact we can have on the ecosystem is through education. So we will continue to invest much more in education. Many people have tried to understand more about the asset class.