Indian Crypto Exchange WazirX Acquired by Binance

The globally renowned cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has recently acquired the Indian bitcoin exchange, WazirX. This acquisition of the Mumbai-based cryptocurrency exchange is being held as a significant move in the digital currency scene of the country. According to sources, the deal was made for five to ten million dollars. Here’s taking a look at the different aspects of this acquisition.

Why is this acquisition such a significant move?

Exchanges in India have been shutting down in the past couple of years because of the lack of proper rules and guidelines. In such a scenario, this acquisition comes as a major move. Moreover, Binance, ranked among some of the top global exchanges, is expected to begin foraying into the growing Indian cryptocurrency market through this strategic move.

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, mentioned that the young population of India offers an advantage to the adaptation and development of new financial tech. This move is expected to make India one of the prominent names in cryptocurrency innovations, along will making the population more open to cryptocurrency usages.

What changes will Binance bring forth in WazirX?

WazirX had opened global operations at the beginning of this year, along with crypto-to-crypto and peer-to-peer transactions. Binance Fiat Gateway will integrate the peer-to-peer engine of WazirX into itself in the first half of 2020. This will enable the users to start trading in all digital assets offered on Binance when Tether or USDT, a cryptocurrency, is bought from the peer-to-peer market of WazirX.

The users of WazirX can buy and sell cryptocurrency using the Indian rupees, from November 25, on the Fiat Gateway of Binance. Signups and trade mining has kept the tokens of WazirX, also called WRX, still available to the people. According to the company’s estimates, over 64,000 users presently have WRX.

The future of cryptocurrency in India

The founder of WazirX, Nischal Shetty, is slated to continue running independent operations from India. Shetty mentioned that WazirX is now looking for geographical expansion of his business because he believes that the next tide of cryptocurrency adaptation will come from the developing nations. And, India is perfectly positioned for that. With the technology available with WazirX and the traders available with Binance, mass adoption of cryptocurrency is possible. The on-ramps for Fiat currencies act as major enabler of fiat to cryptocurrency.

It authenticates that in spite of regulatory questions, the major global players have ways to access the dormant demand in the Indian ecosystem. The major global exchanges now have fiat for the Indian users and this can make other important players of the market more interested. For instance, the Indian company Matic Network used Binance Launchpad to raise funds for its Marlin Protocol project.

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India is expected to the first of many such initiatives by Binance. The company wants to continue working towards greater cryptocurrency adoption and lowered entry barriers. One of their major aims is also to include more fiat currencies and to start partnering with the local entities to add more fiat-to-cryptocurrency pairings.