“Seeking a Balanced Fiscal Framework and Favorable Cryptocurrency Regulations from the Budget” – Digital Transformation News

A balanced tax framework, introducing crypto-friendly regulations and enabling entrepreneurship in the Web3 sector are some of the key statements cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX made at the Centre for the Budget, co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta tells Piyush Shukla in an interaction. Excerpts:

What are the key representations of cryptocurrency industry to the government for the budget?

Having a balanced fiscal framework is good for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and this is part of our representation at the Centre for the Budget. Secondly, the sector wants to be regulated and it is necessary in terms of customer protection. We have urged the government to launch a favorable regulatory framework. Globally, more and more countries are developing a clearly defined regulatory framework. The last request is to cultivate entrepreneurship in the Web3 sector.

In the early days of the Internet, many innovations happened outside Indiamainly in the US. These companies are now worth trillions of dollars. The Web3 sector alone can add $1.1 trillion to India’s GDP and the government can help achieve this.

How can we prevent Indian customers from using non-compliant foreign cryptocurrency exchanges for trading?

This is a very important issue. Esya Centre, a third-party agency, has conducted a lengthy analysis and recently released the report, stating that despite nine foreign virtual digital asset (VDA) exchange websites and apps being officially blocked from operating in India in January 2024, the non-compliant exchanges have still seen large increases in trading volumes from Indian users, which can be primarily attributed to the changes in the VDA tax architecture announced in the Fiscal Year 2023 Budget.

These are real numbers. Many clients from India have been using foreign exchange because taxation is high domestically and the regulatory framework is opaque. This is not safe from the client’s point of view. These are Indian funds, they should stay in India. Government intervention is needed to ensure this. Clients should only engage with regulated and compliant VDA service providers.

What was the rationale behind the acquisition of Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange BitOasis?

We have been investors in BitOasis and have been interacting with the team for almost two years. Since the initial investment, we have seen the progress the company has made. In addition to being profitable, it is very solid financially. It operates in one of the fastest growing cryptocurrency markets globally. We wanted to work with BitOasis more deeply. So, we first made a strategic investment that naturally evolved into a completed acquisition.

Over the past six years or so, we have grown from a small startup to become the largest cryptocurrency exchange in India and a dominant force in Web3. Global expansion has always been part of our growth strategy. With this acquisition, we will leverage our technology and capabilities developed for Indian markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries.

Will you keep the current BitOasis team?

The existing BitOasis management team and employees will continue to be there. We are actually augmenting the BitOasis team with new capital. The company’s strategy will also continue, the only addition is the technology that CoinDCX will bring to the table, subject to local regulatory approvals.

What are your plans?

We are increasing the breadth and depth of our products. We have been working on introducing Web3 mode on the CoinDCX app. The thought process was to enable Web3 access directly to our 15 million customer base directly in the product itself. We are constantly introducing new products. We are making efforts for grassroots adoption of Web3.

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