India Cracks Down on Offshore Crypto Platforms Ahead of Regulation Hearing
India's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND) has issued non-compliance notices to 15 offshore cryptocurrency platforms under Section 13 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The move targets Weex, Blofin, Bitunix, DigiFinex, Toobit, Rezorex, XT.com, Latoken, WOO X, Pionex, ChangeNow, SimpleSwap, FixedFloat, WhiteBIT, and Guardarian.
The notices were issued on September 9, just a week before the Department of Economic Affairs is due to testify before Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance about virtual digital assets. This hearing will discuss how India should regulate cryptocurrencies, given that around 91.5% of Indian crypto trading volume sits on offshore platforms.
This enforcement action follows previous efforts by FIU-IND in December 2023, when it issued show-cause notices to nine larger platforms, including Binance and Kraken. Several of those platforms were blocked in India by January 2024, with Binance eventually registering and paying a penalty of approximately ₹18.82 crore ($2.25 million).