Government requests Apple to delete cryptocurrency apps, including Binance, from its local app store.
The Indian government has intensified its efforts to regulate offshore cryptocurrency exchanges that are operating without local registrations. As part of this crackdown, the government has requested Apple Inc. to remove the apps of platforms like Binance from its App Store in India. As a result, popular exchanges such as Bitfinex, HTX, and Kucoin are no longer available on the App Store in the country. These removals were carried out based on instructions from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, as per anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
The move marks a significant escalation in a crackdown on India’s offshore crypto platforms such as Binance, which began on December 28 when authorities notified nine exchanges of suspected misconduct. Indian crypto traders had already started transferring deposits to local exchanges that follow the country’s rules, fearing they would lose their funds.
Authorities also asked Alphabet Inc’s Google to remove the apps, one of the people said. India’s Google Play Store still had replacement apps, which were removed from the App Store at 2:00 PM. local time on Wednesday. Apple, Google and India’s technology ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
India’s Money Laundering Intelligence Unit issued a so-called show-of-compliance notice to nine offshore platforms on December 28 and also asked the information ministry to block the entities’ URLs. The Money Laundering Bureau said at the time that stock exchanges were operating illegally in India without complying with anti-money laundering laws. The sites are still accessible from India.
Of the exchanges mentioned in the announcement, only Bitstamp was still available for download from the local App Store on Wednesday. Of the two US-based versions of Kraken, only the Pro version was available.
Binance, the largest crypto exchange, has come under heavy pressure from regulators around the world who accuse it of serving local users without a license. India joined countries such as Belgium and Australia in banning the company, which it says has no global headquarters, and in November agreed to pay $4.3 billion after pleading guilty to anti-money laundering and sanctions violations in the United States.
“The situation we have is not unique to Binance, but also affects certain other applications in the web3 industry,” a Binance spokesperson said via email. “We are working hard to inform constructive decision-making that aims to benefit every user and all market participants.”
HTX, formerly known as Huobi, said it has no operations in India. Bitfinex, KuCoin, Bitstamp and Kraken did not respond to requests for comment.
India’s government last year imposed anti-money laundering regulations on the crypto sector as it tightened controls on digital assets with other countries. In 2022, authorities dealt a major blow to local crypto exchanges by introducing a transaction tax that caused trading volumes to drop immediately.
Local exchanges had complained that the 1% tax, known as Tax Deducted at Source, drove Indian crypto traders to offshore platforms that did not impose it, further eroding their revenues. CoinDCX CEO Sumit Gupta estimated in October that 95% of trading had moved to offshore locations.
