The Indian Apple app store has recently blocked several crypto exchange apps, including Binance, KuCoin, Bitget, Huobi, OKX, Gate, and MEXC. This move comes weeks after the Indian government issued a non-compliance notice against nearly a dozen off-shore crypto exchanges. Consequently, these exchange applications are no longer accessible to new users.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Indian finance ministry, on Dec. 28, issued a notice to Binance, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, KuCoin, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, Bittrex and Bitfenex for illegally operating in India. The FIU notice stated that any exchange offering services to Indian users must register as a ‘reporting entity’ and file statements with the income tax department. The FIU recommended that the IT Ministry block the mentioned exchanges’ websites for non-compliance.
Despite Apple’s app store blocking the FIU-notified crypto exchanges, these are still available on Google’s Play Store. Sumit Gupta, the founder of Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX, shared his thoughts on the recent ban on foreign crypto exchanges and shared a plan for investors looking to transition from non-compliant offshore exchanges to compliant Indian exchanges.
Following the imposition of a 30% tax on crypto and a 1% tax deduction at source for every crypto trade by India, the volume on crypto exchanges plunged. Indian users rushed toward foreign crypto exchanges to avoid the hefty tax regime. The latest action would now prohibit the use of foreign exchanges.
The recent action from the Indian government comes amid growing demand for regulations. During the recently concluded G-20 summit, the Indian government called for global collaboration on the crypto regulatory front. The Indian crypto community has long been calling for a balanced crypto regulatory framework; despite several re-assurances, the Indian finance ministry has yet to table the crypto bill in the parliament.
Binance didn’t respond to a request for comments at press time.
This News Article was automatically generated by Bob the Bot (AI)
| Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Geography | Asia |
| Countries | 🇮🇳 |
| Sentiment | negative |
| Relevance Score | 1 |
| People | Daniele Servadei, Sumit Gupta |
| Companies | Bitstamp, Kraken, Binance, CoinDCX, Huobi, MEXC Global, Google, OKX, Gate, Apple, KuCoin, Bitget, Bitfenex, Bittrex, Financial Intelligence Unit |
| Currencies | Bitcoin |
| Securities | None |
