Coinbase hires former Google Pay exec to lead India operations

Coinbase, a major cryptocurrency exchange that went public on Nasdaq earlier this month, continues to actively expand in India with a new hire.

The cryptocurrency exchange has hired Pankaj Gupta, a former Google Pay engineering lead in India and Asia Pacific, as the vice president of engineering and site lead for India.

Announcing the news on Tuesday, Gupta said that he will be responsible for “leading and building from scratch the company’s technology hub in India.” He also noted that Coinbase has started hiring in India, posting several job applications.

Coinbase officially announced plans to establish a business presence in India last month, expecting to open a physical office in Hyderabad and start hiring talent in engineering, software development and customer support. 

“The plan is to hire hundreds of employees across all levels in engineering, product management, UX design, research and program management within the next 1–2 years to build out a full tech hub in India,” Gupta stated in a blog post.

“To support our ambitious growth plans in India, we will also explore startup acquisitions and acquihires,” he added.

Coinbase’s expansion to India comes amid significant uncertainty regarding the legal status of cryptocurrency in the country. Since early 2021, several anonymous sources have disseminated rumors on a supposed upcoming crypto ban in India. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman subsequently stated that regulators did not want to “shut all options off” and were willing to allow “certain windows” for people to use digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC).