While the Supreme Court’s final ruling on the crypto exchanges regarding fiat handling is yet to come out, Unocoin suspends withdrawal and deposits of fiat on its exchange. Unocoin exchange had received immense popularity for Crypto-rupee and crypto-crypto trades where it dealt in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The Reserve Bank of India on 5th April 2018 passed a direction to all the centralized banks to stop dealing with crypto exchanges. Crypto exchanges contested the ruling in the Supreme Court, but we have yet to receive a final verdict from the Supreme Court of India. As per the last hearing on July 20, 2018, the court postponed the final verdict to September 11, 2018.
While the court has yet to deliver the final ruling, Unocoin’s spokesperson declared on July 23, 2018, that they have temporarily disabled deposits and withdrawals. However, it does not affect the crypto-to-crypto exchanges or Crypto deposit and withdrawal on both Unocoin and Unodax (exchange). As Unocoin suspends withdrawals, the platform users can still use the INR balance to purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum on Unocoin even the Unodax is still operating the Crypto-rupee and crypto-crypto peer trades.
A few weeks ago, The Unodax has introduced 17 new crypto to crypto trading pairs. It was not speculated that the decision might be an indication of the upcoming suspension of withdrawals and deposits on Unocoin. SEBI and RBI have stayed reserved on the initial draft of the final ruling on cryptocurrency trade and exchanges, but as per a senior official from Finance Ministry, a rough regulatory draft of the final paper is already ready.
As Unocoin suspends withdrawal and deposits of the fiat, one positive aspect that comes out is that there would be no GST applicable to any crypto-to-crypto trade.
