CoinDCX, the leading cryptocurrency exchange in India, has made a significant move by acquiring BitOasis, a well-known digital asset platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This marks CoinDCX’s first venture into international expansion and allows the company to leverage BitOasis’s established presence and regulatory licenses in the MENA region.
Based in Bengaluru, CoinDCX has revealed that BitOasis’s team will join their organization while maintaining their own branding and leadership. With this acquisition, CoinDCX can utilize BitOasis’s licenses to operate across the MENA region, where BitOasis already offers trading in more than 60 tokens. Over its eight-year history, BitOasis has raised over $40 million in funding.
Although the financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed, a CoinDCX spokesperson confirmed that BitOasis investors will receive equity in CoinDCX, ensuring a profitable deal for them. This expansion comes as Indian crypto companies face challenging regulatory conditions in their home country. The Indian central bank has advised lenders to avoid business with crypto firms, and the government has imposed a 30% tax on digital asset gains. As a result, Indian crypto companies like CoinDCX are actively seeking to expand beyond domestic borders.
CoinDCX, valued at $2.1 billion in a 2022 funding round, launched a decentralized exchange last year and has been actively expanding its operations. The company has processed over $800 million in quarterly trading volumes and aims to become the leading trading platform for crypto worldwide, according to its co-founder and CEO, Sumit Gupta.
CoinDCX is strategically leveraging the ban on Binance and other international exchanges in India. While these international exchanges are working to comply with Indian regulations to resume operations, CoinDCX is benefiting from their absence. The company’s expansion strategy now targets the MENA region, a mature market with a strong interest in crypto investments. CoinDCX sees significant potential in this market, as BitOasis, a regional player in the MENA market, has already processed $6 billion in trading volume since its founding in 2016.
BitOasis recently obtained a broker-dealer license in Bahrain and is also licensed in the UAE. Ola Doudin, co-founder and CEO of BitOasis, expressed excitement about the acquisition, highlighting the regulatory milestones that BitOasis has achieved, such as being the first platform registered with the UAE Financial Intelligence Unit and securing a license from the Central Bank of Bahrain. Doudin emphasized that the acquisition will enable BitOasis to offer a wider range of products, enhanced crypto services, increased liquidity, improved trading options, and an enhanced user experience.
CoinDCX has experienced a significant increase in customer deposits, with a 2000% rise since the finance ministry issued show cause notices to nine major offshore exchanges, including Binance, for not complying with local money laundering laws. Since the implementation of a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) on crypto exchanges in India in July 2022, domestic trading volumes have dropped by approximately 90%. Many Indian users have shifted to offshore platforms that do not comply with the TDS rule, resulting in a significant loss in tax revenue. The recent show cause notices require foreign exchanges to implement the TDS or face a ban from operating in India, with a deadline to respond by January 11.
