Apps of as many as eight crypto exchanges together with Binance, Kraken, Mexc and Kucoin have disappeared from Apple’s App Retailer in India, lower than two weeks after the companies have been flagged for working “illegally” within the nation. Monetary Intelligence Unit, an Indian authorities company which scrutinizes monetary transactions, late final month issued present trigger notices to 9 crypto companies and alleged that they weren’t compliant with India’s anti-money laundering guidelines.
FIU had requested India’s IT Ministry to dam web sites of all of the 9 providers in India. Different exchanges whose apps have been pulled are Huobi, Gate.io, Bittrex, and Bitfinex. Bitstamp, one other trade flagged by FIU, was nonetheless operational on App Retailer in India.
The apps are nonetheless listed on the Google Play Retailer in India and their web sites are additionally nonetheless accessible within the nation. Apple didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Many Indian merchants had switched to international cryptocurrency platforms in current quarters in an obvious transfer to evade taxes. India started taxing digital currencies final 12 months, levying a 30% tax on the positive aspects and a 1% deduction on every crypto transaction.
Whereas India-based crypto exchanges together with a16z-backed CoinSwitch Kuber, B Capital-backed CoinDCX and former Binance-partner WazirX proceed to require rigorous know-your-customer verifications earlier than onboarding new customers, the identical hasn’t been true of many international platforms. (Buying and selling quantity on WazirX has dropped by a staggering 97% in two years partly as a result of many merchants have moved to international apps.)
Extra to observe.