US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase plans to restart its business in India after a hiatus of nearly three years.
Two anonymous sources familiar with the situation сообщили, that the trading platform’s employees are negotiating with Indian regulators, including employees of the Financial Intelligence Unit. If the company’s specialists manage to reach an agreement with the officials, the firm will return to the market.
Recall that Coinbase opened an office in India in April 2022. However, just three days later, the exchange had to close because the management of the National Payments Corporation of India reported that it was “not aware of any cryptocurrency exchange using the Unified Payments Interface” to make money transfers in the country.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong set the record straight, saying the trading platform had suspended operations due to “informal pressure” from the Reserve Bank of India. While trading in digital assets is not prohibited by law, Indian businessmen have avoided working with cryptocurrency companies to “not upset” the central bank.
Brian Armstrong
However, the development of the cryptocurrency market is hampered not only by the Reserve Bank of India, but also by the draconian Tax Code, according to which residents of the country have to give the state 30% of the profit from trading digital assets and transfer 1% of the amount of completed transactions to the treasury. Therefore, it can be assumed that many Indians evade taxes by using the services of platforms that are not registered in India.