How to buy Bitcoin in India: the four steps, from someone who built the first exchange

To buy Bitcoin in India you need four things: an account on an Indian platform, completed KYC with your PAN and Aadhaar, rupees added by IMPS or NEFT, and then a buy order. On Unocoin that means signing up with your +91 mobile number, finishing KYC inside the app or website, moving money in from your bank, and either buying instantly or starting a Systematic Buying Plan that buys for you from ₹10.

That is the whole process. There is no minimum balance, you do not need to buy a whole Bitcoin, and you do not need a wallet before you start. What you do need is ten minutes, your documents, and a clear idea of how much you can afford to see swing up and down. The rest of this guide walks through each step, what to check, and the one rule about OTPs that matters more than any of it.

Why this question built India's first Bitcoin exchange

I moved to Bangalore in 2011 for a robotics company. Around 2012 I went down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, and I missed the Toronto meetups so much that I started one of my own. We began in coffee shops. We outgrew them. Eventually we were meeting at the Leela Palace, about a hundred people every Saturday.

Back then a lot of people called Bitcoin funny money. So our thinking was simple: instead of meeting in someone's basement, what if we met at the nicest place in town? People would walk in and feel that this was something serious.

And at every meetup the same question came up. Can I buy some Bitcoin?

I did not have a good answer. You could try Mt. Gox or Bitstamp, but getting rupees to either of them was hard. There was one local site, and it worked, but it was a one-page affair that would scare off anyone who was not already obsessed. I was desperate enough to use it. Most people were not.

Then one day David Johnston asked me, "Sunny, is there anything like Coinbase in India?" I could not answer the question. That told me it was probably a good idea. We launched Unocoin at a large Bitcoin event we ran in Bangalore in December 2013, and it has operated since then. The site today states 2.26M+ verified users.

So when someone asks me how to buy Bitcoin in India, I am answering the same question I could not answer in 2012. The good news is that it is now four steps.

Step 1: open an account with your mobile number

Download the Unocoin app or go to the website and sign up with your +91 mobile number. The account is free and there is no minimum balance. You will set a password and verify the number with an OTP.

That OTP is for you alone. Read it off your own phone and type it into the app yourself. Nobody else needs it, ever.

Step 2: KYC with PAN and Aadhaar (and what never to share)

Every serious Indian platform will ask for KYC. Unocoin is registered with FIU-IND as a reporting entity under the PMLA, and since March 2023 virtual digital asset service providers have had to register with FIU-IND and follow anti-money-laundering rules. In practice that means you verify your PAN and authenticate your Aadhaar before you can trade.

Do this inside the app or website, and nowhere else. Not in a WhatsApp chat. Not in a Telegram group. Not on a call with someone who says they are from support.

The rule I would tattoo on every first-time buyer: no genuine support team will ever ask for your OTP or password. If you later hold Bitcoin in your own wallet, never share your recovery phrase and never type it into a website or a message. Most people who lose money in their first year do not lose it to price. They lose it to someone who asked nicely.

Step 3: add rupees by IMPS or NEFT

Once KYC is approved, add funds from your bank account by IMPS or NEFT. On Unocoin, INR deposits are free. Use a bank account in your own name, the one linked to your KYC.

People often ask about UPI. Payment rails for crypto in India have been uneven since 2022, and Unocoin supports IMPS and NEFT today. If anyone offers you a shortcut through a stranger's UPI ID, walk away.

Step 4: buy once, or start a plan from ₹10

You have two ways to buy.

Instant buy. Pick an amount in rupees and buy at the quoted price. The fee is 0.5% plus 18% GST on the fee. Unocoin's own fee page gives the example: on a ₹10,000 purchase the fee is ₹50 and the GST on it is ₹9, so you pay ₹10,059.

Systematic Buying Plan (SBP). Choose a rupee amount, from ₹10, and a schedule: daily, weekly or monthly. The plan buys that amount each time, with ₹0 SBP fees. Unocoin calls it India's first Bitcoin SIP. Because the rupee amount stays fixed, you get more Bitcoin when the price is lower and less when it is higher. That is rupee-cost averaging. It takes away the pressure of picking a day. It does not take away risk.

Either way, what you receive is satoshis. One Bitcoin is 100 million sats, 10 crore in Indian terms, so ₹10 buys a small number of sats and that is completely normal. The home page shows exactly how many sats ₹10, ₹100 and ₹1,000 buy at the live price.

What to check before you pick any platform

I am obviously not neutral about which app you use. So instead of telling you which one is best, here is what I would check on any of them, including ours.

• Is it on the FIU-IND list of registered virtual digital asset service providers?
• Can you withdraw Bitcoin to a wallet you control? Unocoin lets you move assets to your own wallet anytime with zero-fee transfers.
• Is the full fee schedule public, including GST?
• Does it say where customer assets are held? Unocoin states 95% are in cold storage with multi-signature wallets.
• How long has it operated, and what did it do when things got hard? When the RBI cut crypto businesses off from banks in April 2018, Unocoin stayed and was part of the case that the Supreme Court decided on 4 March 2020.

None of those checks makes Bitcoin less volatile. They tell you whether the platform is the kind you can read about in public documents. The Is Unocoin safe? page lays out each one with a source so you can verify it yourself.

Tax in one paragraph

Buying and holding is not a taxable event. When you sell, swap or spend, the profit is taxed at a flat 30% under section 115BBH plus 4% cess on that tax, and only your cost of acquisition is deductible. A 1% TDS is deducted on the sale value under section 194S once your sales cross the yearly threshold, and it counts toward your final tax. Losses cannot be set off against other income or carried forward. Every sale goes in Schedule VDA of your return. The Income-tax Act, 2025 renumbers these sections from 1 April 2026, so check the current numbering and your own situation with a CA. The India crypto tax guide has worked examples.

What has changed since 2013, and what has not

A lot has changed. In 2013 the answer to "how do I buy Bitcoin?" was a list of foreign websites and a wire transfer that might or might not arrive. Today it is a mobile number, a KYC flow, an IMPS transfer and a ₹10 plan.

What has not changed is the part only you can do. Bitcoin is volatile. Crypto products are unregulated in India, and there may be no regulatory recourse for loss. So start with an amount you could hold through a sharp fall without losing sleep, learn how it behaves, and grow from there if it still makes sense to you.

If you want to understand before you act, start with Learn, or see how a small plan works on the Bitcoin SIP page. If you are ready, the account is free.

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Sources

• Unocoin fee schedule
• Income Tax Department of India