Changpeng Zhao has distanced himself from the entire event stating that Binance only provides wallet services to WazirX as a tech solution.
India’s enforcement directorate (ED) has been recently conducting raids at one of India’s most popular crypto exchanges WazirX. During an investigation by government agencies last week, WazirX founder Nischal Shetty said that global exchange Binance holds a stake in WazirX.
However, Changpeng Zhao has completely denied the claims saying that his company never acquired Indian exchange WazirX. Zhao stated:
“Binance does not own any equity in Zanmai Labs, the entity operating WazirX. Binance provides wallet services for WazirX. WazirX domain is transferred to our control. We were given a shared access to an AWS account. We could shutdown WazirX. But we can’t, because it hurts users. If you have funds on WazirX, you should transfer it to Binance. Simple as that”.
Commenting upon the 2019 acquisition of the exchange, Changepeng Zhao said that Binance never completed the transaction. He also stated that his company “never – at any point – owned any shares of Zanmai Labs”.
However, WazirX founder Nischal Shetty said that Binance was confusing the situation by referring to Zanmai Labs. He stated:
“WazirX was acquired by Binance. Zanmai Labs is an India entity owned by me & my co-founders Zanmai Labs has license frm Binance to operate INR-Crypto pairs in WazirX Binance operates crypto to crypto pairs, processes crypto withdrawal”.
Panic among WazirX Users
One of the issues that ED has with WazirX is that the exchange might have facilitated money laundering. Some officials in the Indian government suspect that WazirX could be conducting some wrongful activity.
After CZ denied any links to WazirX, users asked on the Telegram channel whether if claims are true. Users also asked whether their funds are safe and if their native crypto WRX would be delisted by Binance.
WazirX responded by stating that “in light of recent events about WazirX, we wanted to assure you that operations are being conducted as normal”. Withdrawals on WazirX are still working pretty fine, said Nischal Shetty.
Zhao has distanced himself from the entire event stating that his company only provides wallet services to WazirX as a tech solution. “WazirX is responsible for all other aspects of the WazirX exchange, including user sign-up, KYC, trading and initiating withdrawals,” he added.
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