Apps of as many as eight crypto exchanges including Binance, Kraken, Mexc and Kucoin have disappeared from Apple’s App Store in India, less than two weeks after the firms were flagged for operating “illegally” in the country. Financial Intelligence Unit, an Indian government agency which scrutinizes financial transactions, late last month issued show cause notices to nine crypto firms and alleged that they weren’t compliant with India’s anti-money laundering rules.
FIU had asked India’s IT Ministry to block websites of all the nine services in India. Other exchanges whose apps have been pulled are Huobi, Gate.io, Bittrex, and Bitfinex. Bitstamp, another exchange flagged by FIU, was still operational on App Store in India.
The apps are still listed on the Google Play Store in India and their websites are also still accessible in the country. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many Indian traders had switched to global cryptocurrency platforms in recent quarters in an apparent move to evade taxes. India began taxing virtual currencies last year, levying a 30% tax on the gains and a 1% deduction on each crypto transaction.
While India-based crypto exchanges including a16z-backed CoinSwitch Kuber, B Capital-backed CoinDCX and former Binance-partner WazirX continue to require rigorous know-your-customer verifications before onboarding new users, the same hasn’t been true of many global platforms. (Trading volume on WazirX has dropped by a staggering 97% in two years partly because many traders have moved to global apps.)
More to follow.