Nischal Shetty and Siddharth Menon, the founders of Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX recently shifted base to Dubai after which has set off speculations about other crypto and Web3 startups and their management moving to Dubai.
Turns out, a few crypto exchanges from India have plans to capitalise on the facilitative ecosystem provided by pro-crypto governments across the world like that of Dubai, which is contrary to the business-ambience back home.
The primary grouse among the crypto-players obviously is India’s negative stance on cryptocurrencies. There is a lack of regulatory clarity on the subject. Moreover, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has also opted for a hostile approach when it comes to the matter of cryptocurrencies. To top it, the recent tax regime, which introduced a flat 30 per cent tax on all crypto gains is doing no favor to investors or crypto service providers.
Amid this mayhem, Dubai seems to offer a ray of hope for crypto service providers. With laws facilitating crypto businesses, ‘Work from Dubai’ has become a popular trend in the crypto industry.
Why Dubai
As Business Today recently reported, Dubai is preparing to become the world's crypto capital. As regional economic competition intensifies, the emirate has pushed for the growth of the crypto sector by establishing a regulatory environment conducive to the recruitment of crypto enterprises and personnel.
Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, the ruler of Dubai, announced last month that the emirate had passed its first law governing virtual assets and that the crypto ecosystem will be overseen by an independent regulator.
The Dubai Virtual Asset Regulation Law (VARA) was enacted with the goal of promoting Dubai and the UAE as regional and global cryptocurrency trading hubs.
Moreover, VARA would be in charge of the regulatory, licensing, and governance aspects of the virtual asset business environment. Indian exchanges obviously want to capitalise on this opportunity.
Avinash Shekhar, CEO of ZebPay told Business Today when asked if the exchange would apply for a license in Dubai, following global exchanges like Binance, FTX, etc, the CEO said “ZebPay has always been an Indian organisation with a global outlook. Our platform currently supports multiple countries and we will continue to explore licensing opportunities globally.”
Despite global ambitions, the exchange still has plans to keep its base here in India. “India is, and will continue to be, ZebPay's primary market. We don't intend to shift our base of operations to Dubai in the foreseeable future.”
Sathvik Vishwanath, founder of Unocoin also had similar thoughts. He told Business Today that currently, they have no plans of shifting base to the Emirate. He said “No we plan to stay and work out from India. We neither have plans of registering our exchange in Dubai in the short term.”
When Business Today reached out to CoinDCX, they responded by saying “Staying in India, building for India, and making India a leader in Web 3 is our mission.”