India’s leading cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX is expanding internationally through the acquisition of BitOasis, a digital asset platform in the Middle East and North Africa, the companies said Wednesday.
The Bengaluru-based startup said the BitOasis team will join CoinDCX, with the original management team continuing to manage the platform, which offers trading in over 60 tokens. BitOasis will also retain its branding, CoinDCX told TechCrunch.
Dubai-based BitOasis had raised more than $40 million in funding over its eight-year existence. The two companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but a CoinDCX spokesperson told TechCrunch that BitOasis investors would receive equity in CoinDCX, adding that the deal was profitable for BitOasis backers.
The expansion comes amid a prolonged period of regulatory hostility towards cryptocurrencies in India, with the local central bank maintaining pressure on other lenders to avoid doing business with crypto firms. India remains one of the least friendly jurisdictions for crypto traders, imposing a 30% tax on profits from digital assets.
The regulatory environment, coupled with a slowdown in the overall market, has forced India’s top crypto firms to find other ways to sustain their growth. CoinDCX launched a decentralized exchange in 2022 and has been working aggressively to expand it.
CoinSwitch’s parent company Kuber, India’s other unicorn cryptocurrency exchange, has diversified its offering to include equity and mutual fund investments over the past year. CoinDCX, backed by Steadview, Pantera, B Capital and Coinbase, was valued at $2.1 billion in a funding round in 2022.
Local exchanges benefited from India banning Binance and more than half of other international cryptocurrency exchanges this year for failing to comply with local anti-money laundering rules. Several of these exchanges, including Binance, are now in contact with the Indian authority and are working to comply with the rules. They are expected to resume operations in India in the coming weeks.
CoinDCX, which processes trading volumes exceeding $800 million every quarter, aims to become the “go-to trading platform for cryptocurrencies worldwide,” CoinDCX co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta said in a statement. “Our expansion strategy begins with the MENA region, leveraging its mature market and the population’s high interest in cryptocurrency investment.”
BitOasis said it has processed $6 billion in trading volume since its founding in 2016.
