Demystifying Cryptocurrency: A session with Dr. Ajay Pathak

“Did you know that over 7 percent of the Indian population owns Cryptocurrency and 57 percent plans to invest in that in the next 7 months?” The Bhawanipur Education Society College’s ECO FOR BE-ITES Collective held a seminar on Demystifying Cryptocurrency on 17th October, 2023 from 11:00 a.m. at the Jubilee Hall of the college campus which saw about 200 attendees.

Cryptocurrency is a mystery to many of us and to solve the mystery, BESC had Dr. Ajay Pathak, Senior Director at IBS, Kolkata to throw light on the concept of Cryptocurrency. A PhD from IIT Kharagpur, Dr. Pathak acquired his engineering degree and is also a Cost and Management Accountant from ICAI Kolkata and his association with IBS is for over 20 years now.

The event started with Prof. Dilip Shah, the Rector and Dean of Student Affairs, of the college who enlightened the audience with his words of wisdom. He said “Cryptocurrency is already in the air. It is the younger generation who can understand it better. In spite of not having an asset backing, it is quite popular today. Therefore, it is important we understand the concept of Cryptocurrency.” With this, he welcomed Mr. Pathak on stage.

Mr. Pathak began the seminar by stating that we should always think of long-term investment to be a gainer and made it a point that “Patience” is the ultimate game. The world has approximately 18,000 cryptocurrencies and he said that risk is always there, but we should analyze how much risk we can afford to take. Hence, it is not a gamble. It is not a gamble also because we have to go through enough research before making an investment. Before an investment, there should be a flow of Data, Information, Knowledge, Analysis and Decision Making.

 

Cryptocurrency emerged in 2008 during the Subprime crisis when people lost faith in banks. A man named Satoshi Nakamoto made Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency, a new-age blockchain technology that is decentralized (not controlled by the Central Bank). In his words, Cryptocurrency is like a moving train with no engine which means that we can see money getting transferred from one account to another but without any centralized control (engine). Mr. Pathak also enlightened the usage of blockchain. He threw light on how we can mine a Bitcoin using a difficult mathematical puzzle known as “Proof of work.” Mr. Pathak explained how crypto trade is possible through the WazirX platform. According to him, if we can absorb the volatility of Cryptocurrency and clearly understand what it is all about, only then we should invest in crypto. Mr. Ajay Pathak said that presently Equity trade is safer because it has security. Security is one of the reasons why RBI wanted to ban Cryptocurrency in 2018.

Lastly, there was a Question-and-Answer round where a question was raised which stated that how the restrictions imposed by the nations affect the growth of Cryptocurrency to which he said that it is important to have regulations over Cryptocurrency to prevent any fraud. The enriching seminar ended with giving felicitation to Dr. Ajay Pathak by Prof. Minakshi Chaturvedi, Co-ordinator of B.Com Morning Department.

Reporter- Moubani Maity