Coinbase Crypto Exchange stops New Signups in India, Are they Leaving the country?

INDIA, Sept. 11 – Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN) is limiting its services in India with supposed full or partial termination of its services. The exchange has already suspended new signups for Indian users, redirecting them to download Coinbase Wallet, a self-custody crypto wallet, Finance Magnates verified.

Is Coinbase Revaluating Indian Presence?

A TechCrunch report today (Monday) revealed that Coinbase plans to cease all services for its Indian users. The exchange even sent emails to its customers in the country, informing them that it would terminate services from September 25 and urging them to withdraw funds.

However, a spokesperson of the California-headquartered exchange told Cointelegraph that the termination of services is limited to only Indian customers who breached the exchange’s standards, the Finance Magnet reports.

“We are reaching out to inform you that we will be discontinuing all Coinbase Retail services linked to your above-mentioned account, as we will be disabling access for the retail accounts that no longer meet our updated standards for these services,” said the spokesperson.

“It is possible that during the course of a recent routine review of our systems, some accounts may have been identified that no longer meet our updated standards. We will therefore be disabling these accounts, and allow customers to update their information at a later date.”

Coinbase’s Rocky Indian Business

Coinbase, the largest US crypto exchange, entered the Indian market in April 2022, allowing local customers to purchase cryptocurrencies with fiat. The physical presence of Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong for the India launch signifies the importance of the country for the exchange.

However, within days of launch, the Indian operations of Coinbase faced setbacks as it had to halt payments through the United Payments Interface (UPI), an Indian instant payments network, due to regulatory pressure. Coinbase also had to temporarily halt trading in India last year in May, due to pressure from the country’s central bank.

Coinbase has less than 50,000 monthly active users in India, according to Sensor Tower data. However, it has a stake in two top Indian crypto exchanges, CoinDCX and CoinSwitch Kuber.

Meanwhile, Coinbase recently launched crypto lending services for institutions in the US. It came after the exchange abandoned its plan to launch lending services for retail clients in 2021 following regulatory pressure.