India’s CoinRecoil exchange goes live before Supreme Court decision

India's current Supreme Court hearings stand to decide the short-term future of crypto in India.

Update 12/11/2018: Nothing has happened. The case is likely to drag on for a while yet.

If you've been following the Bollywood drama of India's cryptocurrency "ban", the name CoinRecoil might ring a bell. It's the exchange that launched a Supreme Court challenge following the Reserve Bank-ordered debanking, or "ring fencing", of cryptocurrency exchanges in India.

Now CoinRecoil has come to life and started trading, albeit in beta phase without live trades yet being available. It's currently only available to residents of India, but there are eventual plans to roll it out internationally, says CoinRecoil director Rupesh Panchal. An optimist might see CoinRecoil's starting up as boding well for the upcoming Supreme Court decision, which may or may not decide the short-term future of cryptocurrency in India.

"As a startup it was a challenging phase for us as we were still sorting out various technical challenges, the RBI issued this new circular [the ring fencing]. So we had one more bigger battle to fight," said CoinRecoil co-founder and director Kunal Barchha. "Right now, we have launched Beta Version of our platform, whereby users can get virtual balance of every listed coin, to test our platform. We call it bug bounty. Starting with 14 crypto assets, we plan to increase the number of crypto assets to 50 by Oct 2018. Once everything is stable – on technical as well as regulatory front, we will launch our full-fledge product, which is already ready with us."

Regulatory stability is still very much in the air though. India's Supreme Court was previously expected to reach a decision on the issue on 11 September, aka "at the time of writing," but sources on the ground suggest that the only real development to come out today might be the announcement of the next date to which the real decision has been further pushed back.

One way or another, this piece will be updated with more information soon.

In the meantime, here's a recap of India's cryptocurrency ban retold as a Bollywood musical because the entire thing just isn't confusing enough yet.

India Crypto Ban: The Bollywood Musical

One day, on a day much like any other, a dashing young man named Crypto swept into town and stole the heart of a beautiful young woman named India through a combination of good looks, a roguish attitude and an appearance of wealth – although he would always dodge questions around where exactly that wealth came from.
Regardless of India's misgivings, it was love at first sight, which soon sparked into a whirlwind romance between Crypto and India.

But unbeknownst to many, Crypto was fleeing from a dangerous past and from previous dealings with villainous characters like Tax Evasion and BitConnect.

These villains were watching the unfolding relationship from the shadows, and in a fit of jealousy that Crypto now seemed to think he was too good for them, decided to break up the happy couple by exposing Crypto's shady past to India and her parents.

Upon discovering the truth, India's parents (played by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)) were distraught and moved to end the relationship by declaring Crypto to be a no-good scoundrel that was too dangerous and unstable to be worthy of India's love.

This scene is one of the most widely-remembered song and dance numbers in the story.

But, in a shocking twist, it's revealed that Crypto had already come clean to India about his shady past and vowed to stay on the straight and narrow to earn India's love. As a result, the RBI's announcement had little effect. It was further rebuffed by Crypto's reputable friends, such as CoinRecoil, who vouched for his good nature and earnestness and promised to do their part to keep him clean.

This put RBI in a tough spot. India really seemed to have fallen for Crypto, but for India's own good, RBI still felt it couldn't allow the relationship to continue.

So began a different tack, where RBI introduced India to other eligible bachelors, like Blockchain, National Digital Currency and Mobile Payment Systems, while doing everything it could to keep Crypto away from India, even going so far as to build a fence around Crypto's home as part of a series of thigh-slapping comedic escalations.

The story comes to a head when one of RBI's old friends comes to town. Unaware of the drama currently going on, the old friend talks about a wonderful young chap named Crypto that they met recently, while unintentionally reminding RBI of its own wild youth and how hard it can be for parents to control children by simply laying down hard and unenforceable rules from a distance.

One popular interpretation of this scene is as a heavy-handed extended metaphor extolling the functional advantages of legalisation and regulation over outright bans.

With everyone's heart suitably melted, after one final song and dance number, Crypto is welcomed into the family... maybe. This last part hasn't happened yet.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author holds ETH, IOTA, ICX, VET, XLM, BTC and ADA.

Picture: Shutterstock