Over 72% of Indian crypto trading volumes went to offshore exchanges in FY25: KoinX report

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• 72.66% of India's crypto trading volume in FY25 went to offshore exchanges
• KoinX users reported Rs 6,394 crore profits and Rs 4,781 crore losses in FY24-25
• Indian crypto industry seeks tax rationalisation and loss offset in Budget 2026

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Nearly 72.66 percent of India’s crypto trading volume that stood at Rs 51,252 crores in FY25 went to global offshore exchanges, revealed a survey released on January 29 by crypto tax compliance platform KoinX.

This coincided with the time when several banned global exchanges had just started registering with the Finance Ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-Ind) to service Indian customers.

KoinX surveyed 670,608 of its users between FY24-25, reporting an overall trading volume of Rs 70,536 crores.

“Our dataset includes user-reported activity across both domestic and international exchanges commonly used by Indian traders, including Binance, Bitget, Bybit, BingX, Gate.io, KuCoin, MEXC, Coinbase, and Kraken, among others,” Punit Agarwal, Founder and CEO, KoinX told Moneycontrol.

Agarwal added that FIU registration and TDS deduction are two distinct aspects wherein having a registration doesn’t always translate into immediate or consistent transaction-level TDS deduction.

“During FY 2024–25, we’ve seen KuCoin, Coinbase has been deducting TDS, while TDS deduction across international exchanges has not been uniform,” he said.

Interestingly, the respondents cumulatively reported Rs 6,394 crores in total profits from trades in spot, margin and futures while total losses stood at Rs 4,781 crores.

Despite incurring losses, about 49.09 percent of users ended up paying Rs 180 crores in 30 percent taxable capital profits as losses could not be offset. These users saw net capital losses of Rs 1178 crores.

For Union Budget 2026, the crypto industry is seeking 30 percent capital gains tax rationalisation, provision for loss offset and re-evaluation of the 1 percent tax deducted at source (TDS).

TDS deductions

Indian exchanges directly deduct 1 percent TDS on all virtual digital asset transactions. At present, the TDS threshold is about Rs 10,000 per year for most categories of taxpayers, individuals and traders; and Rs 50,000 per year for small traders and specified persons.

Total TDS collected was at Rs 511.83 crores, out of which KoinX users contributed over Rs 130.16 crores (25.43 percent). Less than 5 percent of the users paid 87 percent of total TDS deducted.

The 1 percent TDS levied on transactions accounted for only about 0.60 percent of the overall turnover on domestic exchanges.

“The 1% TDS on crypto transactions has become a significant liquidity factor in the Indian crypto market… This figure reflects transaction volume, not profitability. TDS is deducted per trade, making it a proxy for trading activity, not net gains,” the report noted.

Agarwal explained, “During FY 2024–25, ₹19,280 crore of trading volume in our dataset occurred on Indian exchanges. Since TDS is deducted at 1% on sale transactions, the total TDS collected reflects only sell-side activity on domestic platforms, not total turnover.”

“Additionally, a significant share of overall trading volume occurs on international exchanges, which further explains why TDS collections appear low relative to total trading volume,” he added.