‘Binance indictment - a cautionary tale for Indian crypto ecosystem’

As Binance chief executive Changpeng Zhao's (CZ) stepped down from his positing, pleading guilty to breaking US anti-money laundering laws after years of probe into the world’s largest crypto exchange, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, observed that there is a “lesson to be learnt from Binance, FTX and other crypto companies.”

“Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disrupter. It makes you a criminal,” Chandrashekhar said on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that the skeptical approach of the current government against crypto speculation “has saved countless Indians from crypto meltdown & losses.”

The enforcement action against Binance came nearly a year after another prominent exchange FTX blew up and led to billions of dollars in losses for crypto investors worldwide.

The Department of Justice and other authorities in the US and other jurisdictions worldwide had been looking into Binance for years for alleged malpractices and flouting local financial laws. The company on Tuesday was incriminated for violation of anti-money laundering and sanctions laws by a US court. It will have to pay a settlement of $4.3 billion, one of the biggest the country has seen.

CZ will separately pay $50 million as part of the deal, which required him to step down as CEO after he was found guilty of flouting the Bank Secrecy Act in a Seattle court. Additionally, Binance was accused of failing to maintain a proper anti-money laundering program, operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and violating sanctions law, according to court filings.

Chandrasekhar’s tweet, along with India’s already cautionary stance on the asset class, points to upcoming turmoil for the domestic market, according to industry players.

“Binance CEO CZ's resignation and anti-money laundering violations could potentially intensify regulatory scrutiny of crypto activities in India, prompting authorities to reassess and strengthen their regulatory framework, increasing compliance pressure on domestic stock exchanges in India,” said Unocoin co-founder and CEO Sathvik Vishwanath.

“This will impact the Indian investors since a lot of them have moved on to foreign exchanges like Binance to trade, post-tax implementation. (Last year 30% capital gains tax and 1% tax deducted at source was implemented by the Indian government). The recent study done by the ESYA centre clearly shows that 3-5 million Indians and more than 90% of the traffic has shifted to offshore exchanges,” CoinDCX co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta said.