“Dukaan jama raha tha, aap log aake berozgar kar diya” , went one meme when the FM made her announcement on taxing digital assets. (I was just setting up shop, now you have made me unemployed)

As soon as the 30 per cent taxation announcement was made, NFT enthusiasts and crypto investors took to Twitter to share their gloom, expressing their emotions through memes such as these.

Some also began to do the maths on the tax. Twitterati Smit Thakkar @Smitether posted, “1 per cent TDS on crypto is restrictive. Let’s say you have 1 lakh and trade full amount on every trade, you pay 1 per cent of the remainder capital as tds. By the 100th trade,TDS paid - 63396, Capital left - 36603. By 300th Trade - TDS paid - 95095, Capital left - 4904. You obviously can claim the TDS back but in the next financial year, in the meanwhile you lose funds to trade, no capital market has TDS, be it stocks, debt market, MCX.”

So will it discourage the enthusiasts from investing in this asset class? Unlikely. As Lal Narendra, 26, documentary film maker, who has invested in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Cardano, said, “The taxation announcement of 30 per cent came as a shock, that leaves us nothing in returns. But I would still continue to invest though I would be more selective in what I pick.”

Adding to that, a media professional from Lucknow said: “Charging 30 per cent in taxation is a lot, don’t know what will be left for us in returns on crypto investments. I will most probably stay out of bigger cryptocurrencies now and invest in smaller potential cryptos for longer duration.” 

On Twitter, Nitin, tweeting with the handle @NG vented his ire saying, “What I sincerely believe is this 30% taxation and 1% TDS will only promote Indian investors to move their funds and trading on foreign exchanges and DeFi!!”

But while the risk takers in this burgeoning asset class were enraged, securities lawyer Sandeep Parekh took a neat swipe at them, with his rueful tweet, “So crypto punting taxed at 30 per cent – but my hard work in my profession taxed at 35 or 43 per cent?