Apple’s App Store Pulls Major Crypto Exchanges in India

Weeks after the Indian government flagged nearly a dozen offshore cryptocurrency exchanges for noncompliance, Apple’s App Store in India has removed the apps of Binance, KuCoin, Bitget, Huobi, OKX, Gate.io, and MEXC. This action means that these crypto exchange apps are now unavailable to new users in India.

On December 28, 2023, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of India’s Ministry of Finance sent out notices to several crypto exchanges, including Binance, Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, KuCoin, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, Bittrex, and Bitfinex, for operating in the country without proper authorization.

According to the FIU notice, any exchange that provides services to Indian users must register as a “reporting entity” and submit financial reports to the income tax department. Due to their failure to comply, the FIU suggested that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology should block the websites of these exchanges.

Despite Apple’s App Store’s decision to block these notified cryptocurrency exchanges, they remain accessible through Google’s Play Store and their respective web versions.

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