Inside small-town crypto obsession

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Editor's note: About 100 km away from the bustling streets of Indore is a small town called Kukshi where government officials slumber away in the afternoons. At the outset, it is a simple town where not much happens besides bursts of gully cricket in the streets and families carrying on with their business.  That’s no longer the case. This small town of barely 30,000 inhabitants has a new obsession: cryptocurrency. Everyone from teens to senior citizens are hooked on it, tells me 34-year-old Mustafa, who has been living here for a few years now.  He’s the local soothsayer for all things crypto in his part of town. Everyone from the local pharmacist to his neighbours rely on his insights on the asset to make their investments, so much so that when he walks down the street people recognize him. “People point and say, look, that’s Mustafa, he knows about cryptocurrency and can make you rich,” he says in Hindi.  Often, Mustafa finds himself hooked to the hotline when it comes to trading. He wakes up at the crack of dawn, makes a …