India Blocks Access to 15 Foreign Crypto Exchanges Under New Regulations

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a government agency in India, has sent warning notices to 15 foreign cryptocurrency exchanges. The FIU ordered these exchanges to block access to their apps and websites in India under Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002.

The exchanges named in the notice include Weex, Blofin, Rezorex, Bitunix, DigiFinex, Toobit, XT.com, Latoken, WOO X, Pionex, ChangeNow, SimpleSwap, Fixedfloat, WhiteBIT, and Guardarian. These companies were required to register with the FIU under a new framework introduced in March 2023 for Virtual Digital Assets (VDA) service providers.

The notices were issued as part of the government's efforts to regulate and monitor cryptocurrency transactions in India. The agency reiterated that crypto products, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), remain unregulated in India and carry a high risk with no regulatory recourse available for losses arising from such transactions.