Apple Axes Binance, Other Global Crypto Exchanges From India App Store Amid Legal Heat

Apple has reportedly removed offshore crypto exchanges such as Binance, Kucoin and OKX from its App Store following a show-cause notice sent to nine virtual digital asset service providers by India’s finance ministry for non-compliance with the country’s money laundering laws.

What Happened: The show-cause notice, issued on December 28 to Binance, Kucoin, Houbi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global and Bitfinex, accused them of operating illegally in India by not registering and adhering to local tax rules. The finance ministry directed the information technology ministry to block the URLs associated with these exchanges.

However, these apps are still available on Google’s Play Store, and it is uncertain whether Google will follow suit. Their websites are also still accessible in the country.

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The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) had requested India's IT Ministry to block the websites of all nine services in the country. However, Bitstamp, flagged by FIU, was still operational on the App Store in India.

Why It Matters: Many Indian traders had reportedly shifted to global cryptocurrency platforms in recent quarters, seemingly to evade taxes. India began taxing virtual currencies last year, imposing a 30% tax on gains and a 1% deduction on each crypto transaction.

While India-based crypto exchanges, including CoinSwitch Kuber backed by a16z, CoinDCX backed by B Capital and WazirX, formerly partnered with Binance, continue to enforce rigorous know-your-customer verifications before onboarding new users, the same level of scrutiny hasn’t been observed on many global platforms.

Trading volume on WazirX has reportedly plummeted by 97% in two years, in part because many traders have migrated to global apps.

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