With the new tax laws on cryptocurrency trading and holding, India has seen a major drop in overall crypto activities across crypto exchanges, based on data collected by cryptocurrency research firm Crebaco (highlighted by CoinDesk).
The data involves volumes of four Indian exchanges, looking at data on CoinMarketCap and Nomics. Research shows a drop in trading of 72 percent on WazirX, a 59 percent drop on ZebPay, a 52 percent drop on CoinDCX and a 41 percent drop on BitBns.
To the unaware, India now has a 30 percent tax on profits from crypto transactions and doesn’t allow offsetting gains with losses from other crypto transactions. Another provision that saw 1 percent tax deducted at source liability is set to take effect starting July 1.
The report highlights that it is unclear if only the new tax laws are to blame for this, since the global crypto trend seems to be in a slump. According to Crebaco CEO, Sidharth Sogani, the volumes have been dropping since April 1st and he doesn’t feel it’ll come back up.
He said, “This has created a new benchmark. It can go further down or sideways, but it is unlikely to go back up. It is clear that the new tax has impacted the market negatively. The government must look into this, and because there is no way to stop this (crypto), the government should embrace the technology.”
Senior crypto lawyer Suril Desai in a conversation with CoinDesk reveals that there is a possibility that the drop in volumes in exchanges could mean the occurrence of off-chain trades that don’t have any records.
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