Union Budget 2024 Hopeful Outlook for Indian Crypto Exchanges

Union Budget is a ray of hope for crypto exchanges

The year 2023 was a very difficult year for cryptocurrency exchanges, where large Indian cryptocurrency exchanges like WazirX saw a decline in trading volumes this year. Whereas the Finance Ministry of India banned a total of 9 foreign crypto exchanges including Binance for not being registered with FIU India. 

After which questions started being raised about the future of the crypto industry. In such a situation, when Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget 2024-25 on February 1, all cryptocurrency exchanges will have their eyes on this budget. Crypto exchanges, which have been expecting relief for a long time, are quite optimistic about this budget.

According to Coin Gabbar, all the crypto exchanges are hoping that the government can give some relaxation in the strict rules made on crypto in this budget, so that the crypto industry also gets a chance to grow. Wazir Due to which the number of investors in the market will increase, which will directly benefit these Indian crypto exchanges.

At the same time, 9 offshore virtual digital assets (VDA) service providers including Binance and Kraken, which are facing ban in India, are expecting from the Union Budget that the government will give them some relief in the budget. Coingabbar believes that the government can remove restrictions from these foreign exchanges through the budget in the Parliament and give them a chance to register with the FIU. 

Apart from this, the government can also announce in its budget speech to give time to these offshore exchanges to present their views. With the government doing this, these exchanges will once again get a chance to run their services smoothly in India. Along with this, there will also be some relief to those investors whose funds are deposited in these exchanges or who were trading through these exchanges.

2023 to be tough for cryptocurrency exchanges in India

The year 2023 has been a tough year for all cryptocurrency exchanges in India, with large Indian crypto exchanges like WazirX, SunCrypto and ZebPay seeing a decline in trading volumes. WazirX trading volume fell by 90% in 2023 compared to 2022 trading volume. While WazirX's trading volume reached $10 billion in 2022, it remained at $1 billion in 2023. SunCrypto's daily trading volume also declined by about 85% in the year 2023.

Along with this, the year 2023 was not special for foreign crypto exchanges as the Government of India took action against 9 offshore virtual digital assets (VDA) service providers and banned them. These 9 foreign exchanges include big names like Binance, Kucoin, Kraken, Huobi, Bittrex, Bitstamp, Gate.io, MEXC Global and Bitfinex. 

Earlier, the Ministry of Finance had issued show cause notices to these foreign exchanges for operating illegally and not following the Money Laundering (PML) Act. After some time, the government tightened the reins on these foreign exchanges and banned their website URLs and also removed their apps from Google Play Store and Apple App Store for Indian users.

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