Indian crypto trading volumes slump following hefty taxes

Published at: July 5, 2022

Trading volume on three major Indian crypto exchanges plummeted 72.5% on average since Friday, when a 1% tax per transaction was enforced in the country.

The Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) came into effect on Friday and appears to have negatively affected traders as exchange volumes dropped from 37.4% on BitBNS and 90.9% on CoinDCX by Sunday. Volumes have stabilized slightly since hitting lows but are still down 56.8% on average, according to CoinGecko.

Indian YouTube channel Crypto India tweeted on Monday that exchange revenues, based on a 0.1% trading fee, are abysmal due to the low volume levels. At the trough of volume levels, WazirX, CoinDCX and Zebpay took in a combined $21,649 per day.

Indian Crypto exchange's trading volume have plunged by 90-95% , 3 months after new crypto laws became applicable. Based on current volumes - Exchanges are only able to generate trading fee revenue of $1000 to $3000 Max.Bitbns seems to be still doing well.Tough times ahead. pic.twitter.com/KNDbea9BCn

— Crypto India (@CryptooIndia) July 4, 2022

For now, crypto traders like Mumbai’s Shounak Shetty are also hurting. Shetty told Economic Times on Monday that he believes the TDS and the 30% income tax on cryptocurrency trades in India will be detrimental to the talent base in the South Asian nation. He said:

“Like other traders, I am trying to figure out if it’s possible to stay profitable on Indian exchanges. This will lead to another brain drain of professional traders to other countries like Dubai that are more welcoming.”

WazirX’s Policy Analyst Anuj Chaudhary explained in the June 30 episode of The WazirX Show on YouTube that the 1% TDS is levied on “digital assets whether it’s NFT, crypto assets, metaverse or any sort of transactions happening on top of public blockchains.”

The tax will be in effect for three months as a test to determine the impact it has on the market. While trading volumes are low now, policymakers want to see its results for a longer timeframe.

Only gift cards used to obtain goods or get a discount, mileage points, reward points, and loyalty incentives without monetary considerations and subscriptions to websites, platforms or applications are exempt from the tax.

Chaudhary’s counterpart on the show, Muthuswamy Iyer, head of legal at WazirX, accurately predicted that the TDS would negatively impact the high volume, high-value traders on Indian platforms. He added that he believes the TDS would also dissuade newcomers and low-frequency traders from gaining crypto exposure.

The average daily transaction volume between WazirX, Zebpay, BitBNS and CoinDCX in June was about $9.6 million per day, but that has fallen to about $5.6 million as of Monday.