CZ says Binance has no big plans for India due to high taxation
Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, has given up on India while pointing out the 1% transaction tax that came into force on 1 July 2022, saying it makes crypto trading unviable in India.
On November 17, while speaking at the TechCrunch Session: Crypto 2022 in Miami, CZ further pointed out that Binance is engaged with blockchain associations and influential persons in India to present the industry’s stance before the policymakers.
“If you are going to tax 1% on each transaction, there is not going to be that many transactions…” he said ”To be honest, I don’t think India is a very crypto-friendly environment.”
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While CZ maintained his negative outlook on India, first publicly expressed during the Singapore Fintech Festival early this month. However, Binance exchange is still available to Indian users.
“A user could trade 50 times a day, and they will lose like 70% of their money. There is not going to be any volume for an order book type of exchange. So we don’t see a viable business in India today,” he explained.
As the 1% transaction tax on crypto activities became effective on 1 July 2022, Indian cryptocurrency exchanges have witnessed up to a 90% fall in daily trading volume.
Binance seems to be benefited by this action of the Indian government as traders have deserted Indian exchanges for fear of tax reporting and compliance and thronged to foreign exchanges, including Binance, which is yet to take a call on compliance with new taxes.
The Binance app witnessed 429,000 downloads in August in India, the highest for the year, and over three times more than the runner-up, CoinDCX.
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