India-attributed exchange inflows hit $88.4B as domestic platforms keep 0.7%

Chainalysis said in its Central and Southeast Asia and Oceania chapter, published Sept. 30, that exchange inflows attributed to India-based users reached $88.4 billion between July 2025 and June 2026, while domestic platforms received 0.7% of that value. The pairing separates national participation from the business captured at home, since funds counted toward India can land on venues based abroad.

The $88.4 billion total left India ahead of Singapore at $82.3 billion, Australia at $79.3 billion and Vietnam at $69.8 billion in the same regional ranking. The chapter describes India as the largest market in the region by centralized-exchange inflow, a lead built entirely from attributed user activity rather than from the domicile of the venues.

That wider crypto economy, the report shows, recorded $135 billion in activity and contracted 14.7% during a weak market. TokenPost put the contrast plainly in its Oct. 4 summary, writing that the inflow total topped Singapore while home platforms kept less than one percent.

The domestic share, the chapter says, fell from around 7% to 0.7% after a sharp drop in mid-2022 and has stayed depressed since. CryptoSlate dated the chapter to Sept. 30 and noted the long trough that followed the 2022 break, which left India far below the regional average of about 7% for home-platform share.

Brazil moved the other way. Its home venues now take 12.5% of inflows, up from 1.5%, in a comparison that spans the Latin America chapter of Sept. 23 and the CSAO chapter of Sept. 30. The prose in both chapters does not pin matching dates or an identical platform sample to the two shares, so the pairing reads as descriptive rather than synchronized.

Country assignment, the researchers explain, starts from estimated users rather than venue addresses. Because pooled exchange funds hide user location on chain, web traffic supplies the geographic signal, and each traffic share is weighted by the square root of GDP per capita. TokenPost described that weighting as the bridge between raw traffic and attributed value.

Removing VPN and bot traffic, Chainalysis acknowledged, is imperfect. The figures are therefore estimates of geographically attributed activity, with that uncertainty carried into every cross-country comparison. CryptoSlate stressed the same qualification, calling the country-level splits modeled rather than directly observed.

The percentages describe received value in the exchange analysis, not trades or revenue. One deposit can fund later trading, so the amount entering a venue and the activity inside it answer different questions. A venue with a thin slice of inflows can still intermediate a larger volume of orders against those balances.

CoinSwitch co-founder Ashish Singhal told the researchers that local tax friction helps explain the offshore drift, adding that compliant domestic venues deduct the levy while foreign ones may not. That is an operator account of competitive pressure, and the figures do not measure how much the tax moved venue choice. Foreign location alone establishes no blanket exemption from Indian obligations.

India applies a 1% withholding on consideration for virtual digital asset transfers paid to a resident, subject to exemptions. The deduction comes off the consideration amount, so a liable sale leaves the seller with less cash for the next trade even where little gain arose. The deducted sum is creditable at filing, which puts the cash effect and the final tax bill on different timelines.

CryptoSlate walked through the arithmetic with a Rs 100,000 liable cash sale leaving Rs 99,000 available and Rs 1,000 withheld toward tax. Another liable sale can generate another deduction, adding to the amount already held back. The illustration shows why active traders feel the rule in available proceeds first.

Singhal described crypto in India as predominantly an investable asset bought, held and sold, while noting an influx of investors aged 35 and above joining a traditionally younger base. Mudrex chief executive Edul Patel, in the same chapter, sees a move from short-term flips toward accumulation alongside equities, gold and mutual funds.

The relative-growth index in the chapter begins at 100 in the third quarter of 2021 and ends at 100, meaning cumulative growth in Indian exchange inflows matched the rest of the region across the full window. India outperformed and underperformed in stretches, then finished even. The chapters leave the detailed domestic-share calculation unspecified.