India escalates clampdown on offshore crypto exchanges like Binance

Authorities also asked Alphabet Inc’s Google to remove the apps, one of the people said. Google Play Store in India still featured the exchange apps that were taken off the App Store as of 2 pm on Wednesday.

Apple, Google and India’s technology ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

India’s Financial Intelligence Unit issued a so-called compliance show-cause notice to the nine offshore platforms on December 28 and also asked the information ministry to block the URLs of the entities. The FIU at the time said the exchanges were operating illegally in India without complying with anti-money laundering laws. The websites are still accessible from India.

Of the exchanges singled out in that announcement, only Bitstamp was still available to download on the local App Store on Wednesday. Of the two versions US-based Kraken offers, only the Pro version was available. Binance, Bitfinex, KuCoin, Bitstamp and Kraken didn’t respond to requests for comment. HTX, formerly known as Huobi, said it has no operations in India.

India’s government last year imposed money-laundering provisions on the crypto sector as it tightens oversight of digital assets along with other countries. In 2022, authorities delivered a major blow to local crypto exchanges by introducing a tax on transactions that caused trading volumes to instantly plummet.

Local exchanges had complained that the 1% levy, known as Tax Deducted at Source, drove Indian crypto traders to offshore platforms that didn’t impose it, further hurting their revenues. CoinDCX Chief Executive Officer Sumit Gupta in October estimated that 95% of trading volume had moved to offshore venues.