Jetking Infotrain became India’s first listed company to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as a reserve for its treasury after purchasing 12 BTC on December 9, according to company figures. CEO Avinash Bharwani.
The company’s Bitcoin reserve is worth approximately $1.2 million, at $97,986.35 per BTC at the time of writing. According to Google Finance factsJetking Infotrain’s market capitalization is almost $4.5 million, meaning the company’s BTC supply represents more than 26% of its size.
In an interview with Bitcoin proponent Max Keizer at the Bitcoin Conference MENA in Abu Dabhi, Bharwani stated that Jetking Infotrain’s treasury would combine shares and BTC to increase the company’s price in the long term.
He added:
“We’re the first to do this, and we’re in discussions with the regulators to see how we can formalize it and make sure everything falls within that spectrum.”
Jetking Infotrain was founded in 1947 as Jetking Electronics and offered trading of electronic goods in India, and made its initial public offering in 1986 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Living coin facts reveals that the company’s first-quarter profit was $366,520, followed by an operating income increase of nearly 39% quarter-to-quarter and 36% year-over-year.
The first publicly traded Indian company to add a Bitcoin reserve news comes on the same day MicroStrategy added more than 21,550 BTC to its stock and Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms unveiled a plan to raise $500 million to buy BTC.
Building blocks
Prominent crypto lawyer Suril Desai is reportedly leading the Indian company’s talks with regulators. Desai was also involved with India-based exchange Unocoin and represented the company when it filed a request for information with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 2020 asking whether banks could provide accounts to crypto companies.
His efforts culminated in the country’s Supreme Court ordering the central bank to do so lifting a ban of almost two years about banks facilitating crypto transactions after the RBI told the court that there were no official restrictions on offering such services. Bharwani weighed in on the decision:
“I think it was very important because that started laying the building blocks for Bitcoin and blockchain, and they also fought the RBI to lift the whole ban from the regulators. So now people can legally hold Bitcoin on their balance sheet.”
He also emphasized that tax reporting is still a work in progress as the tax on Bitcoin profits in India is 30%.