Coinbase (COIN) has now made its crypto trading services available to users in India, the firm said on Thursday.
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The exchange’s app will now be active in India, the firm said at an event in India’s tech hub, Bengaluru. Coinbase is the world’s second-largest exchange by trade volume.
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Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, who has been in India over the last few weeks first announced that the company is making “a long term investment” in India. The firm’s Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee later demonstrated user onboarding on the exchange.
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The announcement comes at a time when India has announced stiff new crypto taxes. The law includes a 30% tax on profits from crypto transactions, which came into effect on April 1, and a controversial 1% tax deducted at source (TDS), which will be effective from July 1.
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Armstrong acknowledged the regulatory challenge in promoting the technology to mass acceptance at a time when enthusiasm has dipped due to the new tax law. “We know it’s not going to be a straight shot to bring this technology. We don’t know exactly how it’s going to evolve. But we’re committed to working with bank partners, regulators, most importantly, the Indian people because they’ve shown a real spark of interest in cryptocurrency, and there’s a real desire to get access to some of these services and products,” he said.
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The onboarding on Coinbase would require setting up a UPI payment method. UPI (Unified Payments Interface) is an instant real-time payment system allowing peer to peer and person to merchant transactions, which is regulated by the Indian central bank.
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Armstrong said, “India has shown a great willingness with UPI.” Chatterjee explained how setting up UPI would be the first step in buying crypto. Chatterjee also said Coinbase has “invested over $150 million in over 10 companies in India” including “Polygon, CoinDCX, CoinSwitch.”
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Earlier this week, Coinbase announced its plans to hire 1,000 people in India at its tech hub by the end of the year.
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Amitoj Singh is CoinDesk’s regulatory reporter covering India. He holds BTC and ETH below CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.
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