Investors of the country's largest cryptocurrency trading platform WazirX, whose tagline is 'Zero Fees, Zero Stress', is under severe stress as promoters of the company have got engaged in a war of words on the social media platform Twitter over the issue of ownership.
WazirX user Syed Naveed Pasha said, "Just curious, is my investment safe? We have nothing to do with company sharing or title issues or partial owing issue."
Another user Ashish Goyal wrote, "I have invested huge amount in WazirX. Is it safe? What should I do? Not able to think of anything else because of this mess. My hard-earned money."
Tanu Talukdar took to Twitter, "don't know what is cooking between Binance and WazirX, but I request you people please don't do anything that hurt user like us who are using both the platform. Indian crypto user are still struggling and facing difficulties with the issues like high tax and TDS and now this thing. "
Paras Dhingra, a crypto analyst said, "When no one claim to have the business why we should take risk being with it, it's dead inside. Leave. "
WazirX urged its user to be calm. In a tweet, WazirX wrote, "In light of recent news about WazirX, we wanted to assure you that operations are being conducted as usual. Crypto and INR withdrawals are being processed normally. We wish to continue to serve you."
"Notwithstanding the action taken by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), we would like to state that currently deposits and withdrawals are working as usual. We are evaluating our further plan of action and will always act in the best interest of users. We have been fully cooperating with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for several days and have responded to all their queries fully and transparently. We do not agree with the allegations in the ED press release. We are evaluating our further plan of action," WazirX said in a tweet.
A war of words has erupted on Twitter over the ownership of WazirX. Nishchal Shetty, Founder, WazirX, raised question on Binance in a series of tweets.
"Deal involved Binance Parent entity after some media reports on Binance structure, we asked about it. We were given an ambiguous answer that parent entity is under restructuring It's been many months, still waiting for Binance Parent entity Can Binance name Parent entity?
"Original deal included sale of WazirX Technology (IP). Same technology was then licensed to Zanmai by Binance for INR market Post licensing: Binance operates crypto-crypto trading, crypto deposit/withdrawals Zanmai operates INR-Crypto trading, INR deposit/withdrawal. In Feb, Binance team wanted control of Zanmai Naturally, if Binance desires control of Zanmai, they can acquire shares Zanmai labs has been co-operating with ED from over 7 days and has submitted all the required data We'll continue to cooperate," tweeted Shetty on August 6.
Another founder of WazirX, Siddharth Menon Tweeted, "All said & done. We have never compromised on users, irrespective of how good or bad the situation is. From security, product, services to support. User's funds are imp so we never used any lending services to earn profits hence we are solvent & our crypto withdraws are active`."
The founder of US-based crypto-exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, a.k.a. CZ, claimed that his company doesn't hold any stake in the Indian company, seen as an attempt to shrug off any role in the allegations surrounding WazirX.
CZ who was in Tax heaven country Monaco wrote on twitter that, "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. WazirX has been uncooperative with us, and looks like uncooperative with ED as well. People playing deception wording games. We can shut down the domain. It just hurts users. We do not have control of the trading system. You just gave the AWS login, no source code, no deployment capability. You also retained access to the AWS account, source code, deploy, etc.
Nischal Shetty and Siddharth Menon, co-founders of Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, have shifted their base to Dubai from India, an official told ANI.
Shetty and Menon have moved out of India with their families to Dubai. Sameer Mhatre, a co-founder of WazirX, however, continues to operate from India, and his premises were raided by Enforcement Directorate on August 3.
Speaking on the social media war of Zanmai Labs Pvt. Ltd. and Binance, crypto finance researcher- Santosh Parashar Said that "I see this deal as one of the well-planned gimmicks."
In fact, this social media war is a kind of official announcement or declaration to the investors likewise what has happened in the past several cases, and investors did not receive anything back. Making the eye washes of both the investors and regulators by such unlisted private companies involved in crypto exchanges in India is new normal evolved over the past few years. This also gives the Indian regulators an open challenge to look at the merger and acquisitions deals of private unlisted entities especially, when they jointly make false anti-investor announcements in association with foreign counterparts.
Parashar said, "WazirX has revised its mandatory binding arbitration and a class action waiver on 1st July 2022. As per terms of agreement with WazirX, all the investors have been made be-fooled in a pretext manner or to stay ready and lose on the grounds of what they have already accepted to the high degree of risk involved in their transactions by following the 'yes' or 'next steps' while downloading the application or while adding their details of debit cards and credit cards to wallets and being unaware of the facts they remitted funds for investments to the company. Perhaps, the two big giants in this deal knew that the greed of investors would have successfully taken over the regulatory warnings and they have accordingly been successful."
( With inputs from ANI )
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