Indian cryptocurrency exchanges are experiencing different problems due to market uncertainty. One criticism echoing right now is that the country does not provide proper regulations for companies and investors, harming the entire ecosystem. On September 28, one known Indian crypto exchange had to shut down its operations entirely.
Zebpay Shuts Down is Platform
According to the official announcement made by Zebpay, the company had to stop offering services to users. This is due to the fact that it has been extremely difficult to deal with the banking regulations imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
On the matter, the exchange explained:
“Despite regulatory and banking problems along our journey, we continued to look for solutions as we did not want India to miss the bus of digital assets that power the public blockchain. However, the recent past has been extremely difficult. […] At this point, we are unable to find a reasonable way to conduct the cryptocurrency exchange business.”
Although it is not possible to perform trading activities, Zebpay’s crypto wallet continues to work. The exchange explained they will not receive new orders until further notice.
Being one of the leading exchanges in the region, the company established industry standards such as Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) systems. But the regulatory agency in the country did not seem convinced about it.
Sandeep Goenka, Zebpya’s co-founder, has been welcoming to new regulations implemented by the government. The exchange and its creators were working so as to eliminate fraudulent activities and bad actors. However, since the government did not relax its stance towards cryptocurrencies, financial institutions denied services to crypto platforms.
There are several countries that were able to establish different regulations to attract crypto businesses. Switzerland, Malta and Japan are just some of these cases. All of them enjoy a healthy crypto and blockchain environment with clear regulatory environments.
At the same time, Bitbns, another crypto exchange, is attracting Zebpay’s users to its platform. In a blog post, the company said that it will refund Zebpay’s users that join the Bitbns platform.
“Today is a bad day for the Indian crypto industry and traders across India, as Zebpay, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in India, is shutting down its exchange business,” the statement says.
In order to receive the withdrawal fee refund, users must keep their funds in Bitbns at least for a week.
Carlos is an international relations’ analyst specializing in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Since 2017, Carlos has written extensively for UseTheBitcoin and other leading cryptocurrency sites; with over 2,000 articles published.
