The Financial Intelligence Unit under the Finance Ministry has issued show cause notices to nine foreign-run cryptocurrency and online digital asset platforms like Binance and KuCoin for non-compliance with the anti-money laundering law.
The financial intelligence unit has also written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block the URLs of these nine entities operating illegally without complying with the provisions of anti-money laundering law in India.
Apart from Binance and KuCoin, other virtual digital asset service providers are Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global, and Bitfinex.
The Finance Ministry said that there are reporting, record keeping and other obligations on Virtual Digital Asset Service Providers under the Act, including registration with FIU IND.
In March, the government had brought virtual digital asset service providers under the ambit of PMLA provisions. So far, 31 virtual digital asset service providers have registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit.
It is noteworthy that the total number of crypto investors in the country is more than 1.9 crore and about nine percent of them are women investors.
According to the report of Coinswitch, 75 percent of the people investing in cryptocurrency in the country are youth and their age is between 18 to 35 years.
Only metros like Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai account for one-fifth of the total value of crypto investments. Delhi tops the country in terms of investment in crypto by value.