While other exchanges have spoken in the past about their proposed revision of tax deduction at source (TDS), Raj Karkara, Chief Operating Officer of ZebPay, talks about the potential boost such a change could give to customer activity.
Having spent more than a decade in India, Karkara also talks about the journey over the years. Here are some excerpts from the interview:
How has the year been for Zebpay?
From a regulatory perspective, we have seen a lot of momentum globally. This has meant that not only private participation, but also institutional participation has increased as ETFs come online.
Participation grew from an institutional perspective with ETFs coming in and more recently developments from a stablecoin perspective also led to new conversations about how money moves across borders. So we see a good tailwind towards 2026. The tokenization of real assets is also gaining momentum globally.
What are your plans for India?
I’m very optimistic about 2026, not just from a price perspective, but also from a momentum perspective in terms of the amount of activity that can happen in India, building the ecosystem and creating value for end users, businesses and the overall community.
What are your expectations from the government in the future?
Our hope is to work with the government to come up with a better tax policy to encourage users to participate. . There are offshore exchanges that don’t have to collect that annoying aspect of the transaction.
That is an opportunity for the government to actually create a framework that levels the playing field. When you have reduction at that source, you still see good volumes. If that tax is rationalized to a large extent, transactions will also be prevented from going offshore.
We see that users transacting with offshore exchanges do not face the same burden of TDS deduction and users think that is okay. So, rationalizing tax policies will be crucial to create momentum in states in India. The idea is to encourage builders to build in India, for India
If you say trading volume could be much higher, how much increase do you expect?
If the purpose of tax policy is rationalized, trading volume will double. Now take that with a grain of salt: there are bull markets and markets don’t double immediately. Consumers need to figure out what works best from their perspective when it comes to when to invest or trade.
Zebpay has had quite a journey, especially between 2018 when RBI had enforced a ban. How would you compare that time to India’s current attitude towards cryptocurrency?
There has been a lot of uncertainty around this asset class globally and I think 2025 has brought a lot of clarity from a regulatory perspective. It is no longer an asset that can be ignored. There is participation not only from the masses, but also from institutions.
We work closely with the FIU, which for us is a fantastic sign and opportunity to show that this asset class has a future and that there are people who are interested in this asset class. More regulations are good for space.
Now we have a regulatory authority that we can work with to understand the nuances around regulation and what regulators are looking for in terms of money movements, how that affects inflows and outflows. As we move forward over the next few years, I foresee more regulation coming, and there is.
How has the trend been for HNIs and institutions?
From 2025 onwards, when Bitcoin ETF went live, we saw much more momentum from HNIs and UHNIs interested in this asset.
They are now investing in it directly through ETFs in India. That trend will only continue to grow from now on. We’ve seen double-digit growth in the businesses our top clients invest in. From our perspective in terms of holdings and investments, we see more than double-digit growth.
When it comes to people buying their digital assets and actually holding them for a longer term
Published on December 31, 2025
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