Binance CEO Takes a Jibe at India’s Tax Regime, Says Business Can’t Survive
India’s crypto-cautious approach does not seem to be sitting well with industry players eyeing global expansion. Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance blamed India’s tax regime over the crypto sector for not creating a viable business environment for the exchange to set up shop. Zhao’s statements were made during the TechCrunch Crypto Conference, which was held on November 17. India imposes a 30 percent tax deduction on all income from crypto activities, and a one percent TDS deduction on all crypto transactions.
Zhao, in his speech, said that India is not a very crypto-friendly place.
“We don’t see a viable business in India today. A user can trade 50 times a day and can lose as much as 70 percent of his money. If you are going to charge 1% tax on each transaction, there won’t be that many transactions. There will be no exchange type order book volume. We are not going to countries where we cannot have a sustainable business — or any business,” a TechCrunch report quoted Zhao as saying.
Zhao, however, has restored his faith in India’s potential to become a profitable market for crypto players. Binance clocked 429,000 downloads in India as of August this year, surpassing all other competing exchanges.
The crypto exchange, founded in 2017, strives to be the most licensed crypto exchange in the world.
Back in July, Ken Li, investment director at Binance Labs told Gadgets 360 in an interview that the company was actively monitoring the Indian market to capture profitable business opportunities.
Zhao, however, is not the only biggie from the global cryptosphere who has criticized India for not taking a more crypto-friendly approach.
Back in May, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was putting informal pressure on the exchange to roll back certain features.
In April, Coinbase announced that Indians will be able to buy crypto assets on its platform using India’s digital payment method – UPI.
The introduction of this feature was called ‘not recognized’ by the government, which led to its suspension from the Coinbase operating system.
Meanwhile, India is still working on making laws to govern the crypto sector. In an effort to support the growth of India’s Web3 ecosystem, a new crypto advocacy group called Bharat Web3 Association (BWA) was recently launched in the country which includes industry players like Polygon, CoinDCX, CoinSwitch Kuber, WazirX, ZebPay, and Hike in between. others.
