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Coinbase has cleared a major hurdle in its return to India after the country’s competition regulator approved its plan to buy a minority stake in CoinDCX’s parent company, DCX Global. The Competition Commission of India signed off on the deal, which values CoinDCX at about 2.45 billion dollars and gives Coinbase a non-controlling share in one of India’s largest crypto platforms.
For Coinbase, the approval formalizes a partnership that began with earlier venture investments and turns it into a core pillar of its Asia strategy. Chief legal officer Paul Grewal called the signoff an important regulatory milestone and a signal of long term commitment to India’s digital asset market. CoinDCX, which serves more than 20 million users across India and the UAE and holds over 1.2 billion dollars in assets under custody, said the investment will help fund new products and expand its reach.
The timing is notable because CoinDCX is coming off a difficult year. In mid-2025 the exchange suffered a 44 million dollar security breach after attackers compromised an internal liquidity account, an incident later linked by researchers to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. Indian police arrested a company engineer whose workstation was allegedly used in the hack, while the exchange stressed that customer balances remained safe and launched a recovery bounty of up to a quarter of any funds clawed back. Coinbase said the way CoinDCX handled the crisis actually strengthened its confidence in the team and platform.
Regulatory clearance also locks in Coinbase’s broader comeback in India. The US exchange first entered the market in 2022, then shut down most local services in 2023 after problems with the UPI payment network and unclear rules, even asking existing users to close their accounts. In 2025 it re-engaged with authorities, registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit, reopened its app for crypto-to-crypto trading and set a goal of offering rupee funding and full fiat on-ramps in 2026.
Both Coinbase and CoinDCX frame the deal as more than a capital injection. With India ranked at the top of global crypto adoption indexes and seen as a key growth market alongside the Middle East, the stake gives Coinbase a regulated anchor in a country it previously had to exit, while giving CoinDCX a deep pocketed strategic partner as it competes for users after a major hack and the collapse of rival WazirX. If the plan works, the tie-up could become one of the defining alliances in India’s next phase of regulated crypto development.
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