In this episode, Sunny Ray sits down with Kashif Raza, co-founder of CryptoKanoon, for a first ever in-depth conversation after months of trying to connect. Kashif shares his journey from a 15-year career in sales and marketing, working with companies like Sony Entertainment Television, UTV, Pepsi, and Indiamart, to discovering Bitcoin in 2016 through a friend. He recounts taking a personal loan to invest, getting caught in a Ponzi scheme, and the depression that followed. That setback led him to a lawyer who became his co-founder, and together they built CryptoKanoon to educate people about crypto regulation in India. Kashif details the team's turning point: live-tweeting the RBI versus crypto Supreme Court case, posting nearly 780 tweets in four to five days from inside the courtroom on a nearly invisible phone screen. He reflects on the emotional weight of the verdict, the stigma crypto carried in India at the time, and his belief that crypto must grow within regulatory frameworks rather than in isolation from governments.
Kashif Raza on losing money to a Ponzi scheme, then building CryptoKanoon to fight for crypto regulation in India.
What's your story before crypto, aside from all the Bitcoin stuff?
I spent close to 15 years in sales and marketing, starting in 2005. I worked with Sony Entertainment Television, Sony Pictures, UTV which is now Disney, plus Pepsi, Shoppers Stop, and Indiamart. In October 2016, a friend showed me an app called Zebpay and told me about Bitcoin. I wasn't convinced at first, thought it sounded like a Ponzi scheme, but went home and studied it and got fascinated.
What happened after you got interested in Bitcoin?
I invested five thousand rupees first, then got so convinced I took a personal loan in December 2017 to invest more. Around the same time, my friend pulled me into a Ponzi scheme that was being promoted by TV stars and media. I put my Bitcoin into it, it returned only five percent, then vanished. I was paying huge EMIs and fell into depression.
How did that experience lead to CryptoKanoon?
I went to a lawyer to try to recover my funds, and he turned out to become my co-founder. He said if a learned person like me got cheated, imagine ordinary people. We decided to educate people about bad actors in the industry. On April 6th, when RBI announced its banking ban, my co-founder wrote an article calling it unconstitutional, and it went viral on Medium and was picked up by CCN. That's how CryptoKanoon started.
Can you explain what 'Kanoon' means?
Kanoon means law. It's actually an Arabic word, not Hindi originally, but Hindi has adapted many words from Arabic and Punjabi, so Kanoon means the same thing in both languages.
How did CryptoKanoon become the voice of the industry on regulation?
The community started seeing us as experts because we decoded regulatory news through a legal lens, which wasn't being done before. Our turning point was live-tweeting the RBI versus crypto Supreme Court case. Mainstream media had court access but weren't interested in covering crypto, so we decided to do it ourselves, even though it turned out to be incredibly difficult.
What was it actually like live-tweeting from inside the Supreme Court?
My co-founder, an advocate, would sit in the front row projecting confidence like he was part of the case, even though he wasn't officially on it. He typed the entire proceedings on a phone screen at almost five percent brightness so nearby advocates wouldn't notice he was live-tweeting. We crossed 780 tweets in four to five days with only two spelling mistakes.
Why exactly five percent screen brightness?
So the advocates sitting on either side wouldn't notice he was typing and complain to the judge that someone was reporting live from the courtroom. That would have gotten him thrown out or caused real trouble.
What impact did that live reporting have, and what's one truth you believe about crypto that others might disagree with?
People around the world followed that case through our tweets, and I believe the positivity and hope it generated played into how the verdict went in our favor. On a bigger truth, I believe crypto cannot grow in isolation from governments. It has to grow within the sovereign boundaries of nations, and regulation, done right, is actually good for the industry, not something to fear.
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