the first exchange i built got raided
bitcoin platform in a country of a billion people. regulators said no. we said see you in court.
This was 2013. Bitcoin was still weird. The first exchange I built operated in India—a market with a billion people and almost no access to crypto.
We grew past 2.5 million users.
Then the central bank raided us. Not a fine. Not a cease-and-desist. A raid. They said Bitcoin was money laundering. They said it was destabilizing. They said we had no right to exist.
We fought them to the Supreme Court.
Not because we thought we'd win easily. Because the alternative was letting a billion people stay trapped without a ramp into Bitcoin. The central bank had effectively said: India doesn't get to participate.
The case took years. We couldn't operate the whole time. We took legal risk personally. The bank had unlimited resources. We had a thesis and no other option.
We won. Not a perfect win—Indian crypto regulation is still chaos—but a win. The Supreme Court ruled that the RBI couldn't unilaterally bar Bitcoin exchanges. The right to operate was restored.
The hardest part wasn't the legal strategy or the PR. It was holding conviction while everything looked like it was burning.
Most founders will never have to make that bet. But everyone faces a choice where the easy move is surrender, and the hard move is continuing. When that moment comes, remember: the people with the most resources rarely have the most to lose.
What conviction have you backed with action, not just words?