Crypto in India: CoinSwitch Kuber disables deposits; users unable to buy cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency investment in India continues to face hurdles! In the latest crypto exchange platform, CoinSwitch Kuber has stopped all the deposit transactions on its platform.

UPI, which was the only mode of loading the wallet, has been paused by the crypto platform leaving no option for its users to buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.

This has come as a big hit for the crypto app which saw 14 million users in 2021.

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Crypto exchanges in India have been seeing a lot of issues with the payment options on their platform. Their struggle has become even worse ever since the implementation of the 30% crypto tax which has led to a lot of available payment methods to withdraw their services. Mobikwik which was the only wallet across multiple platforms also withdrew its services starting April 1.

Nasdaq-listed crypto trading platform Coinbase launched its services in India and it also mentioned that customers would be allowed to use UPI for purchases. However, the same day the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which operates UPI said in a statement that it was not aware of any crypto platform using UPI. Following which, Coinbase disabled the UPI option, leaving no option to buy cryptocurrencies on its platform.

Even as there is no clarity on the legal/illegal status of the cryptocurrencies in India, financial institutions have been wary of offering any services to crypto platforms in India even as the Reserve Bank keeps warning against the virtual assets.

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