BENGALURU: Users of crypto exchange WazirX are worried as Binance on Monday ceased off-chain fund transfer between the exchange and WazirX. It will cease to support off-chain fund transfers between WazirX Exchange and Binance via the ‘Login with Binance’ option, which is said to be a popular feature on WazirX. Users will still be able to deposit and withdraw balances via the standard withdrawal and deposit process between Binance and WazirX, world’s largest crypto exchange Binance said.
WazirX has nearly 15 million registered users, and the public spat between the exchange and Binance started ever since the Enforcement Directorate (ED) froze its bank balances worth Rs 64.67 crore. WazirX founder Nischal Shetty said the exchange was acquired by Binance and Zanmai Labs has license from Binance to operate INR-crypto pairs on WazirX.
However, the latter denied this and said funds deposited on WazirX were not managed by the exchange and that the acquisition transaction was never completed. Binance has never owned any shares of Zanmai Labs. Binance, which has over 90 million registered users, said it will support Indian regulators in the ongoing matters. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted saying WazirX has been uncooperative with them and it looks like uncooperative with ED as well.
“We asked for transferring of WazirX system source code, deployment, operations, as recently as Feb this year. This was refused by WazirX. Binance do NOT have control on their systems,” Zhao tweeted. In a separate tweet he also said, “If you have funds on WazirX, you should transfer it to Binance. Simple as that.” During ED investigation, it is observed that Zanmai claims that they are involved in only INR-crypto transactions and all the other transactions are done by Binance on WazirX.
“They are giving contradictory and ambiguous answers to evade oversight by Indian regulatory agencies,” ED said. When contacted WazirX, it said, “We do not agree with the allegations in the ED press release. We are evaluating our further plan of action. We are the only large crypto exchange that allows complete withdrawals of cryptos in India, showing how solvent we are and how sensible our business model is.” The exchange added that INR withdrawals are working and there is no issue in terms of the structural viability of the company and that users’ crypto is safe.