Crypto players are seeking tax relief and regulatory clarity on the budget front

The way forward lies in pragmatic reforms that bring users back to compliant platforms while strengthening compliance | Photo credit: ozgurdonmaz

Sumit Gupta, co-founder of CoinDCX, says the VDA sector is “naturally” looking for measured relief, especially as it has been four years since the current tax framework was introduced. “The decisions taken now can meaningfully accelerate innovation and help India emerge as a global Web3 and VDA leader. The way forward lies in pragmatic reforms that bring users back to compliant platforms while strengthening compliance,” said Gupta.

“A critical first step is to ensure clarity in the rules and mandate that all crypto exchanges implement TDS provisions uniformly, which will improve compliance and improve citizens’ protection from questionable, non-compliant operators through better regulatory compliance. Reducing TDS from 1 percent to 0.01 percent would maintain monitoring while removing the primary incentive for offshore migration, encouraging users to return to Indian platforms and increasing the visibility of supervised transactions government is being restored,” he said, adding that aligning the 30 percent capital gains tax with the income tax slabs, along with allowing loss carryforwards and standard business deductions for Web3 businesses, would help create a future-proof ecosystem.

Financial stability

SB Seker, head of APAC, Binance, called for the introduction of measured regulatory and tax refinements that protect users, maintain financial stability and support responsible market development. “From a tax perspective, a pragmatic framework that focuses on realized capital gains, with provisions for limited loss offsets and elimination of transaction-level levies in favor of net revenue-generating corporate taxes, can improve fairness for private participants and signal to them that India has moved beyond the tax-and-deterrent regime to a fuller licensing and supervision regime,” he said.

Pankaj Balani, CEO and co-founder of Delta Exchange, says the priority should be to support compliant domestic platforms that follow India’s KYC/AML norms and capital control rules and protect consumers’ data.

“Recent estimates suggest that Indians contributed nearly ₹5 lakh crore to trading volume on offshore exchanges between October 2024 and October 2025, highlighting how quickly trading activity and value can migrate abroad,” he said.

“When platforms fall outside Indian jurisdiction, oversight becomes weaker, consumer complaints are limited, and the economic value created by Indian users flows disproportionately abroad. We lose the jobs this industry creates and the economic value it creates. More importantly, relying on unaccountable foreign platforms for critical financial infrastructure poses systemic risks, especially during periods of geopolitical or market stress,” he added.

Published on January 21, 2026