The government has been in talks with the Indian crypto industry and has taken measures in the past months to meet some of their demands.
Gupta’s comments follow the recent Rs 18.82 crore fine imposed on Binance by the Financial Intelligence Unit in India (FIU-IND), for not following local anti-money laundering laws while serving Indian users.
This comes months after nine offshore exchanges in India were blocked for not registering and following local anti-money laundering regulations under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002.
Citing Sensor Tower data, KuCoin highlighted that it has crossed CoinDCX and CoinSwitch’s app download growth, which saw an increase of 26.3 percent and 15.1 percent respectively, to become the fastest growing.
While Binance’s penalty is yet to be decided, KuCoin which is fully registered has paid out Rs 34.5 lakhs in penalty and is now operational, said FIU-IND director Vivek Aggarwal.
In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, KuCoin’s CEO Johnny Lyu gets candid about the company’s India ‘glocal’ strategy, challenges of operating an exchange in the country, strategic investment plans, localised payment solutions and more.
In a statement, the CFTC said Kucoin had solicited and accepted orders for commodity futures, swaps and other commodity transactions without registering with the commission.
With this, KuCoin will be setting up a local India team, and collaborate with banks and partners to offer localized payments solutions.
The exchange has asked users to close all their margin positions, as well as positions in perpetuals, futures, and options, and withdraw all funds by April 30
“We are aware of an IP block affecting a number of crypto firms, including Binance. This only impacts users who attempt to access the Indian iOS app store or the Binance website from India,” Binance said.
"Please note that existing app users will not be impacted. We will continue to work with regulators to resolve the situation and will share updates here," Binance said on X responding to the issue.