Here is a list of good cryptocurrency exchanges that allow you to buy Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies and others with INR in India. These exchanges are found and run by Indians.
It’s a hurray news for all the Indian as the Supreme Court of India lifted the crypto banking ban on exchanges and businesses dealing in cryptocurrencies on 4th March 2020.
Exchanges like BuyUcoin and Colodax also support INR transactions but we couldn’t test them for various reasons and have boiled down to this list after our due-diligence.
| Buy Bitcoin-Like Cryptocurrency In India | USP | Quick Links |
| Bitbns | Offers Multiple ways to deposit INR, can trade 72 digital assets on the exchange. Margin trading with 4x leverage. “Instant INR” deposits available. | Join Now |
| WazirX | Innovative Peer to Peer exchange for USDT. Users can buy USDT with INR, then use USDT to buy any other crypto assets like BTC, ETH, etc. | Join Now |
| Giottus | Good support. Faster INR deposits and withdrawals with dedicated Peers. | Join Now |
| Cashaa | Offers INR deposits and withdrawals, which can be used to buy BTC, ETH and CAS on the platform. | Join Now |
| CoinDCX | Good volume due to liquidity sharing with Major exchanges. Quick INR deposits and withdrawals. Margin trading, crypto lending, etc. | Join Now |
| Ethx.co | An international exchange now formerly knows as ethx.in that support INR deposits with Credit and Debit Cards. | Join Now |
| InstaCrypto | Purchased Crypto is sent directly to the user’s personal wallet. Closed Order Book. | Join Now |
| Completely Peer to Peer exchange supporting INR with multiple digital assets listed. | Join Now | |
| Pocketbits | One of the oldest exchanges in India now offers Peer to Peer INR deposits and withdrawals. One of the few exchanges with closed Order Books. | Join Now |
Contents
How To Purchase (or Buy) Bitcoin (BTC) In India With INR?
Here’s a list of the best exchanges (alphabetically) and a short review of them for you to decide which one you can use to trade cryptocurrencies in India with INR. Don’t worry, it is not illegal to trade crypto-assets in India.
#1. Bitbns
Bitbns exchange has been around for a year and a half and has grown significantly with innovation. A lot of new products were launched first on Bitbns while the other exchanges followed suits such as excepting INR deposits with UPI, Peer to Peer INR transaction services and some controversial ones like Voucher based deposits.
The exchange has 72 Digital assets listed, paired with INR while some paired with USDT as well. You can deposit INR on the exchange using two major ways Peer to Peer USDT Exchange or Peer to Peer INR exchange.
- P2P USDT – User can buy USDT from a list of sellers by depositing the INR into seller’s bank account directly.
- P2P INR – Depositing User can transfer INR to a withdrawing user’s bank account directly.
- BidforX voucher-based Deposits.
To speed up INR deposits for users, Bitbns introduced “Instant Deposit” feature, which approves an INR deposit from user equivalent to the crypto balance immediately, even before the peer confirms to have received the money.
Trading Fee: Bitbns charges a 0.25% fee for buyers and sellers.
The exchange also offers Margin Trading with leverage upto 4x.
#2. WazirX
WazirX maybe the last on the list alphabetically, but it deserves the place in the top two with the amount of innovation and growth the exchange has shown in the past year.
It was the first exchange to launch an automatic order matching USDT Peer to Peer exchange. No exchanges before WazirX offered an order book that matched traders for peer to peer transactions. Users can deposit money into WazirX by buying USDT on the p2p exchange, and then purchase any other crypto using USDT.
WazirX offers 60 crypto assets to be traded with multiple pairs like USDT, INR, and BTC. Although USDT is the prominent one.
Trading Fee: Makers – 0.1%, Takers – 0.25%
#3. Giottus
Giottus exchange offers spot trading as well as peer to peer trading for INR based pairs of multiple cryptocurrencies. To deposit INR for Spot trading, the exchange offers an INR deposit and withdrawal service with dedicated peers. It is quicker to deposit and withdraw INR from Giottus. The exchange charges 0.2% fee for INR deposits.
Trading Fee: 0.25% for Buyers, 0.15% for sellers.
Cashaa
Cashaa, a banking startup registered in UK, provides an easy way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH and CAS (Cashaa token) on their platform using INR.
User can deposit or withdraw INR from their INR wallet on Cashaa. The limits set for each individuals can be increased if KYC and verification is completed.
The INR deposits on the platform are now free. Cashaa at press time, recorded a trading volume of 460 BTC in last 24 hours, which is higher than any other Indian exchange so far. Cashaa is a closed orderbook exchange.
The trading fee on Cashaa is 1.5%.
With Cashaa, a user will receive the crypto on their private wallet, instead of Cashaa controlled wallet. That give s a major advantage to the platform over other custodial exchanges.
Check out Cashaa – https://cashaa.com/bitcoin-india
Ethx.Co
Ethx was known as ethx.in earlier in 2017 with just ETH to trade. Since then the exchange added more coins, did an ICO, launched an international exchange and now represents a closed order book exchange that even allows you to invest in a bucket of cryptocurrencies.
Users can use their Credit and Debit cards to deposit INR into ETHX which can then be used to purchase cryptocurrencies.
InstaCrypto
Instacrypto is a closed order-book exchange with just 7 listed Crypto assets. The exchange does not store your crypto-assets. While placing an order, the user must give an address of their wallet, once the funds are transferred for the order, the crypto is sent to the wallet address.
The exchange also provides remittance services for INR. My only criticism about the exchange is the price being a little higher for buying and a little low for selling compared to the market average.
Trading fee: 0.5% trading fee + Crypto Withdrawal fee as crypto is not stored on the exchange.
Instashift
Instashift exchanges is a non-kyc based peer to peer exchange that offers trading for multiple digital assets. You need a phone number to register. In a true sense the P2P exchange connects the buyer with a seller, who then transfers INR to the seller to buy the crypto asset on the exchange.
Instashift also offers a service called Flip which lets you convert any crypto asset to another crypto asset within a few seconds. I choose instashift over any other non-kyc P2P exchange because of the team’s quick support and community engagement via telegram groups.
Trading Fee: Instashift charges 1% fee for buyers and sellers.
PocketBits
One of the oldest exchanges in India Pocketbits has also launched a peer to peer INR deposit and withdrawal system. The uniqueness about Pocketbits is that it is a closed orderbook exchange. Hence, a user doesn’t have to wait for their orders to be fulfilled by another trader. When you place the order, it is fulfilled at the price displayed.
For INR Peer to Peer, user must create a request for depositing INR. User is then matched with another peer who has created a withdrawal request. Once the INR is deposited, it can be used to purchase any Crypto assets.
Android users have to download the Pocketbits app for KYC. iOS and Windows users need to complete KYC by contacting support from the exchange site.
Trading Fee: 0% trading fee.
CoinDCX
CoinDCX exchange also recently celebrated a year of completion. Opened with a novel model of liquidity sharing with Binance, the exchange has launched several products along the way supporting INR transactions, Margin trading, interest-based crypto lending, etc.
CoinDCX offers trading of crypto assets in multiple base pairs like BTC, ETH, INR, USDT, and more. It is quicker to deposit INR on CoinDCX than many other exchanges because of a unique model. CoinDCX has deployed dedicated Peers for processing INR deposits and withdrawals. It means, your deposit or withdrawal will be processed in a few minutes from when the request is placed.
Trading Fee: 0.1% for Binance and CoinDCX, 0.2% per trade for Huobi and Hitbtc.
CoinDCX has the highest number of trading pairs in India. It is 465 with 200 listed digital assets.
Conclusion: How & Where To Buy Crypto In India?
There are many other crypto exchanges that are still operational like BuyUCoin and Colodax as well. I have faced certain issues with BuyUcoin and Ethx while Colodax is very new to be able to judge. Once these are sorted, I will add them to the list.
Many other Peer to Peer exchanges offers INR based Crypto trading. These exchanges are not run by Indians are pretty popular among Indian traders. Check them out here or join our telegram group to have a chit-chat 🙂
Update Note: Ethx.co was added to the list after testing the exchange. Bitbns no longer tracks SMS from the Android App. Cashaa was added after testing.
Disclaimer: Some links to exchanges shared in the article are affiliate links. It will not affect the user’s experience in any way.
