Adding crypto to IndiaStack, a set of national APIs for payments and identity, could allow India to build an OSS stack for domestic and foreign transactions
and as iSPIRT details, the rapidly growing cryptoeconomy may be one of the key ways: https://pn.ispirt.in/... @balajis : How do we connect the trillion dollar cryptoeconomy to the billion person Indian economy? Add crypto to IndiaStack. Use the digital rupee for domestic commerce and crypto protocols to attract international investment. And bring India to the frontier. https://balajis.com/... Joe McCann / @joemccann : What does it take to build a modern app? - Identity - Payments - Data The India Stack provides these as APIs to its citizens today but cryptocurrencies would better enable them to conduct business *outside* of India. 🤝 @balajis https://balajis.com/... @himjaparekh : Fabulous. How can India not miss the bus this time around. Everything is in place. We just need to ... https://twitter.com/... Morgan Beller / @beller : Imagine if Fedwire was run by one of America's most successful CEOs who was now recommending to crypto-tize the network... https://twitter.com/... Benedict Cooney / @benedictcooney : Building the software stack for a multipolar world. @balajis brilliantly sets out how India can be an innovator in Crypto. https://balajis.com/... Abhishek Murarka / @abhymurarka : With due respect, this article is quite confusing. The first part expounds on how SME outflows are cash based, given the nature of end use. The latter half explores if KYC'ed Crypto investors can fund the SME credit gap. That defeats their basic disbelief in the fiat economy. https://twitter.com/... Eric / @wheatpond : For those of you who don't recognize the name, this is the guy behind infosys and one of the wealthiest and most connected people in the country https://twitter.com/... Eric / @wheatpond : This tweet will end up in history books, explaining how emerging economies leapfrogged established ones... https://twitter.com/... Akshay Kothari / @akothari : Great read. I hope @UPI_NPCI does this! https://twitter.com/... Ira Dugal / @dugalira : Interesting but a bit of a leap. https://pn.ispirt.in/... Vinny Lingham / @vinnylingham : This piece is one of the best examples of thought leadership at a global scale that I have ever read. The @PMOIndia should personally read this, along with every other world leader. https://twitter.com/... Nischal / @nischalshetty : Good to see innovators like @NandanNilekani discussing crypto innovation in India 🇮🇳 Crypto will play an important role in helping India reach its $5T economy goal. #IndiaWantsCrypto https://twitter.com/... @earnwithrk : Working towards building crypto and its technology is what we need to continue pushing forward. Blockchain & Crypto is the only future. #IndiaWantsCrypto https://twitter.com/... Nischal / @nischalshetty : It's great to see such support for Crypto innovation from accomplished technologists such as @balajis India stands to gain tremendously by participating and being an early adopter of Crypto Technology #IndiaWantsCrypto https://twitter.com/... Lily Liu / @calilyliu : What's more - as China has demonstrated - integrating crypto can actually further state objectives with domestic policy and international currency (and therefore trade, etc) sovereignty. (Separate discussion whether this leads to dystopian outcomes...) https://twitter.com/... @balajis : “The internet connected the average Indian to millions of sources of information. Could crypto protocols connect Indians to millions of sources of capital?” https://pn.ispirt.in/... Meltem Demirors / @melt_dem : if India implements this, it will become a blueprint for every other nation state on the planet 🌎 economies should embrace the promise of #Bitcoin and public blockchain networks https://twitter.com/...
Balaji S. Srinivasan
Context & Ripple Effects
Srinivasan's pitch lands on infrastructure India has spent years assembling: UPI debuted in 2016 on top of the biometric ID system, and the India Stack's government-backed APIs now let third parties build apps for payments, loans, and identity at population scale. Two months earlier he had argued a crypto ban would be technically, socially, and politically infeasible — this proposal is the constructive version of that argument: don't prohibit, integrate.
The arc since has been uneven. Delhi imposed a 30% tax on crypto transfers and announced a digital rupee in 2022, then by 2025 exchanges like Coinbase were eyeing a return as regulators signaled a pivot, with India hosting 12% of global crypto developers. The proposal matters because it names the missing layer: crypto protocols for cross-border flows the state-run stack doesn't natively serve.
First-order effects
Adopting the proposal would split the stack by rail: the digital rupee handles domestic commerce through IndiaStack's payment and identity APIs, while open crypto protocols handle remittances and inbound foreign investment — the trillion-dollar cryptoeconomy plugged directly into a billion-user API layer.
Third-party developers already building on IndiaStack would gain a second settlement layer to compose against, and exchanges like Coinbase, sizing up a re-entry, would find a state-sanctioned on-ramp rather than a regulatory gray zone.
Second-order effects
The 30% transfer tax becomes the pricing battleground: if crypto rails are meant to attract international capital, a punitive domestic tax on the same assets forces regulators to reconcile an investment-attraction policy with an extraction policy.
Rival remittance corridors and correspondent-banking intermediaries face competition from protocol-based settlement that bypasses them entirely, pressuring fee structures on India's inbound flows.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, India becomes the template for state-built API infrastructure absorbing open crypto protocols rather than fighting them — other emerging markets with large diasporas could copy the stack-plus-protocols structure for their own cross-border flows.
The deeper tension is control: a digital rupee gives the state programmable domestic settlement, while open protocols resist it — how IndiaStack governs that boundary would set precedent for how national payment systems worldwide treat permissionless rails.
The trend: National digital-public infrastructure is converging with crypto rails, with states deciding whether open protocols become an extension of their API stacks or a competing settlement layer.
How does India become a $5T economy? We'll need to close the $250B financing gap for India's small businesses by attracting global, risk-tolerant pools of capital — and as iSPIRT details, the rapidly growing cryptoeconomy may be one of the key ways: https://pn.ispirt.in/...
How do we connect the trillion dollar cryptoeconomy to the billion person Indian economy? Add crypto to IndiaStack. Use the digital rupee for domestic commerce and crypto protocols to attract international investment. And bring India to the frontier. https://balajis.com/...
What does it take to build a modern app? - Identity - Payments - Data The India Stack provides these as APIs to its citizens today but cryptocurrencies would better enable them to conduct business *outside* of India. 🤝 @balajis https://balajis.com/...
With due respect, this article is quite confusing. The first part expounds on how SME outflows are cash based, given the nature of end use. The latter half explores if KYC'ed Crypto investors can fund the SME credit gap. That defeats their basic disbelief in the fiat economy. htt…
For those of you who don't recognize the name, this is the guy behind infosys and one of the wealthiest and most connected people in the country https://twitter.com/...
This piece is one of the best examples of thought leadership at a global scale that I have ever read. The @PMOIndia should personally read this, along with every other world leader. https://twitter.com/...
Good to see innovators like @NandanNilekani discussing crypto innovation in India 🇮🇳 Crypto will play an important role in helping India reach its $5T economy goal. #IndiaWantsCrypto https://twitter.com/...
Working towards building crypto and its technology is what we need to continue pushing forward. Blockchain & Crypto is the only future. #IndiaWantsCrypto https://twitter.com/...
It's great to see such support for Crypto innovation from accomplished technologists such as @balajis India stands to gain tremendously by participating and being an early adopter of Crypto Technology #IndiaWantsCrypto https://twitter.com/...
What's more - as China has demonstrated - integrating crypto can actually further state objectives with domestic policy and international currency (and therefore trade, etc) sovereignty. (Separate discussion whether this leads to dystopian outcomes...) https://twitter.com/...
“The internet connected the average Indian to millions of sources of information. Could crypto protocols connect Indians to millions of sources of capital?” https://pn.ispirt.in/...
if India implements this, it will become a blueprint for every other nation state on the planet 🌎 economies should embrace the promise of #Bitcoin and public blockchain networks https://twitter.com/...
UPI led to mass adoption of digital payments. What did that mean? ~3 billion transactions ~5 trillion rupees exchanged In just one month! (Mar'21) It's unfathomable, what could the impact of this mean... https://twitter.com/...
“By implementing a Crypto IndiaStack and becoming the international champion of decentralized crypto protocols, India could be the neutral third party that facilitates rather than dominates the world.” - Cryptotroopers “This is the way!” - The Mandalorian https://twitter.com/...
A manifesto that can elevate India from a state of fear to the greatest beneficiary of the biggest wealth generation event in the last century Crypto, fastest growing source of capital 🤝 India, fastest growing large economy with insatiable demand for credit + foreign investment h…
Dear @ImranKhanPTI, The next frontier for economic growth is the crypto economy. India is quickly realizing the potential of Bitcoin and crypto-assets. Time for your move. https://twitter.com/...
During the post-pandemic stagflation phase, the developing countries that can attract moneyflows into their economies via crypto will pull ahead. https://twitter.com/...
Crypto can bring dignity to all Indians. Bottom-up money supply as a fundamental right, transfering the Indian CBDC seiginorage to the people, can bring dignity. The fundamental right to have or not digital identity, can bring fundamental rights protections to all Indians. https:…
“The internet connected the average Indian to millions of sources of information. Could crypto protocols connect Indians to millions of sources of capital?” https://twitter.com/...