The world’s leading crypto exchange has given an ultimatum to the operator of WazirX to withdraw all customer funds stored on Binance’s infrastructure and wallets. This comes as Zanmai has supposedly refused to retract a previous “false public statement” against Binance. The spat between the two crypto trading platforms began last year when the Indian...Read More
Months of lobbying by Indian and global crypto firms to see if the local tax laws will provide some leeway proved futile. The Indian Finance Minister, in her budget speech for the 2023-24 fiscal, did not mention crypto or virtual assets at all. No relief in existing crypto taxes has been granted. Crypto Taxes Unchanged ...Read More
In a significant development that indicates that the Indian government may not fully chime with the central bank’s overly hostile stance against cryptocurrencies, a junior minister explained that such activities are fine as long as they follow existing laws. This is in sharp contrast to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) ban on crypto in...Read More
While Indian crypto exchanges lost a significant portion of their trading volume after new taxes for the sector came into force, the losses, so far, were referred to in percentage terms, with most estimates quoting them to be above 90%, compared to the previous year. Now, a new study has quantified the value of cumulative...Read More
A junior finance minister told the Indian parliament on Tuesday that the government has collected about $7.4 million in TDS on crypto transfers since July 1. Given the low numbers, the government may consider the local crypto industry’s demand to reduce the tax to a reasonable level – in the range of 0.01% to 0.05%....Read More
A prominent Indian cryptocurrency trade body – Bharat Web3 Association (BWA) – has red-flagged the high taxes and regulatory uncertainty in its draft of concerns and recommendations submitted to the Indian Finance Ministry, which is holding consultations in the run-up to the budget for 2023-24. A meeting between the BWA representatives and the Indian finance...Read More
The initial excitement among Indian bankers over the launch of a central bank-sponsored digital rupee seems to be fizzling out. They find it adding to their paper and accounting work without bringing any significant benefits over the existing procedures. Bankers point out that the real benefit of e-rupee may be in the retail and consumer...Read More
India’s largest and most advanced government-run hospital, more popularly known by its acronym AIIMS (The All India Institute of Medical Sciences), suffered a hack of its servers on November 23. Even as they remained out of order for the sixth consecutive day, a new twist emerged in the ongoing multi-agency investigation and restoration effort. A...Read More
The quick downfall of FTX with an $8-10 billion deficit in its balance sheet has left the broader cryptocurrency market reeling under its cascading effects. Besides Proof of Reserves (PoR) and Reserves to Liability (R2L) Ratio data, Indian crypto exchanges, battling low volume caused by high taxation and an unfriendly regulatory environment, have responded to...Read More
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has all but given up on India. Pointing out the 1% transaction tax that came into force on 1 July 2022, CZ said it makes crypto trading unviable in India. Speaking at the TechCrunch Session: Crypto 2022 on November 17 in Miami, CZ further pointed out that Binance is engaged...Read More
India’s anti-crypto policy came into sharp focus at the prestigious Singapore Fintech Festival (2-4 November), where Binance CEO flagged high tax rates as undoing the fledgling crypto business in the country. With over 60,000 participants and 850 speakers representing top global financial services, banks, and policymaking bodies, Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) is one of the...Read More
Indian investigation agencies are probing three crypto exchanges for their roles in illegal drug trade transactions after they were alerted by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which has zeroed in on nearly 200 such transactions. These financial dealings for suspected drug deals in Nigeria, the Cayman Islands, and the British Virgin Islands were reportedly carried...Read More
A series of enabling factors places India at the forefront of global Web3 transformation, said a report by Nasscom, a no-profit apex body of the $227-billion Indian tech industry. It identifies the rapid adoption of new technologies, vast talent pool, and robust startup ecosystem as the key drivers of the nation’s push for a key...Read More
A day after Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about her plans to work towards a tech-driven regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies under the aegis of G20, industry leaders offered mixed reactions to her statements. Sitharaman spoke about crypto regulations to reporters on the sidelines of the fall meetings at IMF, World Bank, and G20...Read More
An Indian district, Firozabad, about 40 km from Agra of Taj Mahal’s fame in the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh, would start the registration of complaints police complaints on the blockchain network. The district, with 2.4 million people and 21 police stations, aims to achieve immutability and transparency of complaints lodged by victims of crime...Read More
In a two-year-old gaming app fraud case, the top Indian financial crime investigating agency has frozen 85.9 bitcoins, equivalent to $1.6 million, held in an account on Binance. Separately, it also froze WRX, the native coin of WazirX, and USDT together, worth nearly $550,000. Earlier this month, the agency raided several premises in Kolkata in...Read More
The Twitter account of Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX remained compromised for hours on Tuesday. Hackers posted a fake XRP giveaway scheme through the exploited Twitter handle @CoinDCX to the exchange’s over 230,000 followers. The giveaway message was interspersed with a phishing link. CoinDCX Twitter Account Exploited As CoinDCX tried to take control of its compromised...Read More
On September 19, WazirX, one of India’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, announced the delisting of Circle’s USDC, Paxos’ USDP, and TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoins, effective September 26, following in Binance’s footsteps. According to the statement, USDC, USDP, and TUSD deposits have already been suspended. In addition, users will have to withdraw their funds by October 05, or...Read More
A Bloomberg report on Wednesday claimed that Binance app downloads in India jumped to 429,000 in August, the highest this year. This comes just months after the country implemented stringent taxation on local exchanges. Binance’s India Gains Binance is the only one among the major exchanges whose app downloads had seen an increase in August...Read More
CoinSwitch Kuber’s CEO Ashish Singhal on Saturday provided more details about the searches at his office and residence by India’s financial crime investigating agency the directorate of enforcement (ED), two days ago. He refuted the recent allegations that his firm has been investigated for certain illicit activities. CoinSwitch CEO Explains In a Twitter thread, Singhal...Read More
Early this week, KuCoin released a survey regarding the new developments in India’s blockchain and crypto space – Into The Cryptoverse Report India, which revealed the number of crypto investors in the country to be in the range of 115 million as of June 2022. These people have either traded or held crypto assets in...Read More
India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Thursday conducted searches at the offices and residences of CoinSwitch Kuber as well as its CEO and directors. The financial crime investigating agency is reportedly investigating a possible violation of the Foreign Exchange Maintenance Act (FEMA). The searches were carried out after the ED officials found that the top...Read More
A group of leading Indian blockchain influencers with expertise in trading, NFT, Metaverse, cybercrime, etc., recently announced the formation of the India Blockchain Forum (IBF). The event at Hyderabad in India’s Telangana state was attended by the state government’s principal secretary for industry, commerce, and information technology, Jayesh Ranjan, said media reports. Hyderabad is India’s...Read More
India’s Enforcement Directorate is conducting an investigation against ten cryptocurrency exchanges allegedly involved in laundering more than 1 billion rupees, equivalent to more than $125 million in digital currency. According to The Economics Times, the exchanges (which have not yet been identified) were used by several companies accused of money laundering to make cryptocurrency purchases...Read More
After the unanticipated public spat between Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty on Saturday over the ownership of WazirX, most Indian business news platforms prominently provided a follow-up on the issue on Monday. Money Control carried an article based on an interview with Shetty in which he said legal documents are in...Read More
While many top-tier crypto exchanges have given up on India given the regulatory uncertainty and bear market, KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu is bullish on the local market for the long run. In a recent interview, he talked about “a welcoming market” and the availability of “expertise” as the two key reasons for his optimism for...Read More
On July 19, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in a speech at the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s bicameral Parliament, that crypto is a danger to international regulatory arbitrage and that they should be blocked or banned. Sitharam explained that any attempt to regulate or ban crypto should be global because cryptocurrencies...Read More
In the wake of major Indian exchanges witnessing drastic drops in trading volume since the 30% tax on obtained revenues came into effect on April 1, the industry now encounters additional downward pressure following the introduction of another new tax that kicked in last Friday. Trading volume on large platforms has been down roughly 95%...Read More
In India, the downturn in the crypto market and the government’s overly restrictive control over the industry have caused many exchanges to suffer, not only because of a decline in adoption but from regulatory uncertainty. Meanwhile, the “anti-crypto” Reserve Bank of India (RBI) continues to work on its pilot project to introduce blockchain technology into...Read More
India’s largest crypto exchange by value – CoinDCX – has extended the withdrawal restrictions that have been in place since May 13 until further notice. It said these extreme steps are necessary to implement enhanced compliance and risk frameworks. After many investors took to social media to express their frustration over the pausing of withdrawals at...Read More
