Prevalence of Crypto-currencies : A Critical Review of Their Functioning and Impact on Indian Economy

The virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies are growing rapidly in developed economies like UK, USA,and Japan. The motives of these currencies to create an efficient method of digital payment system which is globally accepted and their traders' belief that these coins have some value, either a physical value or have a money value in terms of their native currency. The first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC) is facing competition today with newly launched ‘Altcoins' or ‘Alternative coins”, like Ripple (XRP), Ethereum (ETH) etc., the market captured (market cap) by BTC is continuously decreasing and ranging between 30 to 35% of the total market cap. The newly launched ‘Altcoins' are technically efficient and have an audience with different motives compare to BTC, also these coins have a huge potential of growth level within a time compare to BTC, Because BTC prices are very high and its growth level is low compares with newly genesis coins. This article deals some important aspects of cryptocurrency worldwide with an addition to explore its role in the Indian Economy because India is not apart from this emerging trend. Many Indian trading exchanges are started within last few years, rather Government of India is not in favor of crypto trading. The aim of this article to critically examine working features of cryptocurrencies, eg; Mining, how crypto Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are working, their exchange markets, and how this peer-to-peer (P2P) currency blockchain works. This article also critically evaluate Indian crypto traders' motives and try to find out a way to deal with the related issues of cryptocurrencies for Indian Economy