Days after the platform was accused of avoiding scrutiny by local officials, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao claimed Friday that his company never concluded a deal to acquire Indian crypto exchange WazirX.
The November 2019 deal “was never completed,” according to Zhao in a tweet thread, and Binance simply offers “wallet services for WazirX as a tech solution.”
“Binance has never — at any point — owned any shares of Zanmai Labs, the entity operating WazirX. WazirX is responsible [for] all other aspects of the WazirX exchange, including user sign-up, [know-your-customer solutions], trading, and initiating withdrawals.”
Despite the fact that the agreement—which at the time was made public by WazirX and Binance—supposedly allowed users to buy and sell crypto using Indian rupees (INR) through the Binance Fiat Gateway.
In what is now a tit-for-tat online battle between the exchange executives, Nischal Shetty, a co-founder of WazirX, has refuted Zhao’s assertions.
“WazirX was acquired by Binance. Binance operates crypto to crypto pairs, processes crypto withdrawal[s].”
The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), the nation’s financial authority, has taken issue with WazirX on claims that Zanmai Labs helped promote money laundering on the exchange.
With 31.7 million users, the exchange claims to be the “biggest” cryptocurrency exchange in the nation, trailing CoinDCX, another significant exchange in India, by roughly eight million users as of March.
Large sums of money were allegedly transferred from dubious non-bank financial companies and their fintech partners to WazirX and then laundered abroad, according to a recent ED probe.