Cracking the crypto code for mass adoption

Chirag Tomar, a 31-year-old Indian citizen, was recently sentenced to five years in prison and two years of supervised release for his role in a cryptocurrency fraud scheme by the American courts. According to US Attorney Dena J King, Tomar and his accomplices stole over $20 million through fake websites mimicking crypto platform Coinbase Pro, deceiving users into providing login credentials or allowing remote access to their accounts. The scam targeted hundreds globally, starting in June 2021.

Cryptocurrency fraud has surged worldwide, shaking investor confidence. According to the FBI, these investment scams accounted for $3.9 billion in 2023. India ranked fifth globally in cryptocurrency-related complaints with 840 cases, suffering losses of over $44 million. Recent incidents in India include a Delhi-NCR girl losing INR 12 lakhs in June 2024 and INR 2,000 crores duped in Himachal Pradesh scams, where 89 arrests were made.

Rising Bitcoin prices in 2024 continue to attract criminal exploitation. Given this environment where investors are hesitant about cryptocurrency adoption, CoinDCX unveiled the 'Learn Karo. Crypto Karo' (Learn first and then trade in cryptocurrency) campaign to educate them on how to go about cryptocurrency trading safely and securely.

Spanning multiple channels, including television, digital, and outdoor advertising, supported by content marketing and influencer engagement, it tells users to skip the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) line, where crypto marketers are seen pandering to the emotions of greed, promising investors of exorbitant returns, Instead, the CoinDCX campaign acknowledges a current investor mindset—fear of messing up (FOMU).

Prashant Verma, chief growth and marketing officer, CoinDCX

“The crypto-currency category is poised for great momentum over the next few years. However, although there is a tremendous interest in the category among investors, a breakout hasn’t happened yet. The reason is the lack of understanding and trust in crypto, especially in India,” said Prashant Verma, chief growth and marketing officer, CoinDCX.

The genesis of the ‘Learn Karo. Crypto Karo’ campaign lies in multiple rounds of market survey carried out by the brand in different parts of the country, including metros and tier-2, tier-3 towns. The findings revealed that although India has 16 crore investors, who are largely aware of cryptocurrency,; only a fraction, 1.6 crores, today invest in crypto. Within this pool, only about 50 lakhs i.e. a shade greater than 3% of the total addressable market of crypto-aware investors, are active crypto-traders. This leaves a huge, over 96% market unaddressed!

Ashwin Varkey, creative co-founder, Fatmen

The target market

Cryptocurrency has long fancied the investor imagination. But it has also faced challenges with respect to country regulations, misuse in illicit activities, and stories of massive losses suffered by investors worldwide.

While many investors, therefore, have preferred to stay out of the game, this lack of participation is not on account of a lack of interest or enthusiasm. Rather, it is due to the fear and perceived uncertainty associated with crypto.

According to Fatmen, the creative ad agency behind the CoinDCX campaign, this can be traced to the FUD factor (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), which incidentally had a great bearing on the way the ad campaign was crafted.

Ashwin Varkey, creative co-founder at Fatmen said, “The challenge with crypto was that while it was seen as young, modern, and futuristic, there was also a lot of uncertainty around it. People wanted to get into crypto because they heard stories of a few people making a lot of money, but the fear of losing money was preventing them from taking the first firm step.”

Therefore, the agency decided that the campaign would target two key market segments: the ‘fence-sitters’, the investors who participate in crypto trading only sporadically. These investors are largely from metros and tier-1 cities who know crypto's potential but hesitate to participate in a sustained fashion. The other target class defined was of ‘emerging investors’ residing primarily in the tier-2 and tier-3 towns. These new investors have embraced equity and now want to learn about other asset classes.

Rishabha Nayyar, co-founder and strategy lead, Fatmen

Expanding upon the brief

Backed by research, the agency started on a clear understanding of the scenario. The team decided to devise a campaign theme that while acknowledging the investor apprehensions about the category, also showed the correct path to its adoption.

The next key challenge for the creative team was to find the best way to acknowledge the FOMU factor. “One key challenge creatively was finding a way to talk about the fear of messing up (FOMU) without making it overwhelming,” Fatmen’s Varkey noted. “Too much focus on fear might scare people off entirely. We had to strike a balance—acknowledge the fear but focus on the solution, which was learning.”

The creative team decided to follow this core idea: Show CoinDCX as not just another crypto trading platform, but rather the mature market leader that takes on the role of an educator and mentor for investors. And that’s where the company’s ‘Crypto Coach’ brand positioning was born.

The ‘Crypto Coach’ would guide investors, and provide them with all the necessary learning tools. As a simultaneous activity, the CoinDCX platform was populated with in-depth learning assets and tools that investors can use to learn the right ways to trade to minimise their cryptocurrency trading risks.

”The market is growing, but many people still come into it with the wrong intentions, thinking it’s all about making quick money,” observed Verma. ”We wanted to make sure that people came to crypto trading for the right reasons—by learning, understanding, and making informed decisions.”

Abhijit Sudhakar, director and co-founder, ZigZag Films

Finding Mr Right

CoinDCX selected Gautam Gambhir as the brand ambassador for this campaign, as his life journey, according to the company, aptly reflected the theme of the campaign. Elaborating on the process of selection, Rishabha Nayyar, co-founder and strategy lead, Fatmen, said, “Our campaign was to revolve around the ‘Crypto Coach’ theme. Therefore, we needed a coach figure. We shortlisted two potential candidates, Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid. Both are respected figures, but ultimately, we zeroed in on Gambhir because of his current role as the coach of the Indian cricket team and his life journey to become a coach today.”

Verma of CoinDCX believed that Gambhir perfectly embodied the philosophy that the company wanted to communicate. “As a player, he has demonstrated the values of focus, hard work, and learning. In his life, he has reinvented himself as a captain and a mentor in IPL games, and later as a cricket coach for the team—constantly emphasising the importance of learning as the right path to confidence and success,” he summed up.

The production-side story

Abhijit Sudhakar, director and co-founder of ZigZag Films, the agency that produced the campaign film, narrated the interesting experiences directly from the sets and post-production studio. The team’s challenge was to keep the tempo serious and funny at the same time. The task involved striking the right balance with Gambhir's persona.

“The script had a potpourri of things packing the elements of chaos, fear, hope, and fun. But we wanted Gautam Gambhir to do the balancing act by coming across as the no-nonsense, straightforward character who spoke with authority,” said Sudhakar. “The challenge was walking the fine line between building tension while still retaining the comedy in those moments.”

CoinDCX has set a target to double its customer-base from the current level of 1.6 crore investors in India in the next 12 months. The Learn Karo. Crypto Karo campaign aims to transcend quick advertising and marketing gains for the brand, redefining the whole narrative around crypto trading in India.

The team behind the campaign including CoinDCX, Fatmen, ZigZag Films, and others, is looking at the bigger task of expanding the market, turning crypto trading from a fringe category to a mainstream asset class, in effect, creating a fresh category itself.
“Category creation is not a one-time effort, and we see this as an ongoing journey,” said Fatmen’s Nayyar. “We will continue to use the same core insight but present it in different creative ways to keep the conversation going.”

Going forward, the team intends to release a sequel to the ‘Learn Karo...’ campaign that revolves around learning. Betting big on investor education through its ‘Crypto Coach’ brand positioning, CoinDCX aims to bring thousands of new investors to the crypto-fold in the coming months.