NFTs will be more popular with time, in India & globally: bitsCrunch CEO

Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) are the latest craze after the cryptocurrencies. Many famous personalities including Amitabh Bachchan have launched their own NFTs. bitsCrunch, an NFT-focused blockchain analytics company, aims to solve issues in the NFT (non-fungible token) space such as forgeries, wash-trading and inefficient asset valuation through using blockchain technology. Based in India and Germany, the startup has a 20-people team in India with the majority of the development team based out of India. The company has developed technology solutions for NFT marketplaces like Polygon, WazirX, Rarible and many others. In a conversation with the Bizz Buzz, company's Founder & CEO,

Vijay Pravin Maharajan said that it will soon come up with B2C (business-to-consumer) solutions that can be used by individual users to determine the credentials of the NFTs before investment. The SaaS company will also raise funds as it expands its area of operations in coming quarters

What is the motivation behind using blockchain in NFTs (Non-fungible Tokens), which has a pretty nascent market across the globe?

NFTs are getting more acceptance in India and across the globe. As a technology person, I can see rising demand for digital assets. Take the case of gaming sector. After players leave the game, the instruments they use, can be monetised as a digital asset. Imagine a case, a person gets an autograph from Sachin (Tendulkar). As an Indian, it is a pretty interesting thing. So, one can buy that thing if he/she values it. Since, we are moving towards a creator economy wherein a lot of individual creators will rule this space (as we have seen as famous YouTubers). Also, this (digital asset) is immutable as it is on blockchain. These assets cannot be tampered. Recently, film star Amitabh Bachchan has released his NFTs. These assets, which are digital collectables, will stay forever and people can see those for generation to come. As we move towards digital economy, users will give digital value to whatever they do.

Which are the entities you currently work with for securing the NFT ecosystem?

What we do is we ensure that the NFTs are safe and secure. Since the NFT ecosystem is pretty new, people are trying to wash trade. Wash trading is a process whereby a trader buys and sells a security or asset for the express purpose of feeding misleading information to the market, thereby inflating the price of the asset artificially. What we are doing is we are securing those assets from those kinds of things. We want it a fair place to trade. Currently, we are collaborating with NFT marketplaces like Polygon, and Rarible. We also work with Covalent, which is a data aggregator. We are an emerging startups and are working with seven to eight collections right now. And we are about to sign another three partnerships in the coming months.

Which are the solutions of bitsCrunch that are currently in use? Are all the solutions using artificial intelligence in blockchain use cases?

We have a wash trade solution, which is used by Rarible. Polygon is using our analytics dashboard. Since, it is a B2B product, we are giving it to businesses. In the future, we are also planning to come up with a B2C product. B2B is always bit tricky and it gains momentum slowly. Right now, we have two products which are used by enterprises. We are a SaaS (software as a services) business.

How the B2C (business to consumer) solution will work? Can you throw some light into this aspect?

Imagine a case where you have a collection of NFTs from Amitabh Bachchan. As an individual, you can log into the tool, paste the ID or token; the history of that token will be shown like when was it minted, whether it has been wash traded, what is the score of it (we give a score to the NFT), is it a fair NFT or not. So, those kinds of information will be available so that people can make an informed decision before purchasing it. As the world moves towards digital, people want something credible on the digital space as well. That is the reason that we are moving towards NFTs.

Currently, cryptocurrencies are going through a lot of regulatory scrutiny across the world with many countries even banning the digital currencies. At a time when cryptocurrencies are yet to receive regulatory acceptance, when do you think NFTs will get some kind of regulatory acceptance? What are your views on this aspect?

Of course, cryptocurrencies are yet to get regulatory approval from regulators. Even countries like China have banned it. It happens with all new technology areas. For instance, in case of autonomous cars, there is a fair amount of reluctance initially. Now, many companies are working on working on the autonomous car space. As far as crypto currencies are concerned, US has accepted it. India is working around some regulations. Germany has regulated the digital currencies. So, this will also happen with time.

How big is the technology team for bitsCrunch? How many are working out of India?

We are a 20-member team. Out of the team, three are in Germany, one in Belgium and 16 members are working out of India. We have raised Rs5.5 crore in seed-round of funding recently. Post fund raising, we have more than tripled our team. We will expand our team size as we want to expand all the chains. We will build up separate teams for all separate chains. We expect a team size of 40 by end of this year or early next year. We will also look at raising funds as we grow.

NFT is an emerging area across the globe and a lot of investors will be keen to participate in this story. What kind of interest are you witnessing from investors?

We have not planned anything as of now. We are getting some revenues from Polygon and Rarible. So money is not a serious concern now. Also, as most of our development team works out of India, we are not in any rush. We want to bring more people into NFTs by building the trust. Since inception, we have around 20 customers.