Will Binance Adopt Indian Crypto Trading?

The legal situation in India is at least as unpredictable as price falls on the crypto market. At first they wanted to ban cryptocurrencies entirely. Then came a 30 percent tax on profits from crypto investments. Now the largest Indian crypto exchange WazirX is attracting attention. And lets the rumor mill boil up again about a possible takeover of WazirX by Binance.

Stablecoin Supremacy

In a blog post on Monday, the crypto exchange explains its future stablecoin policy to its users. It states that USDC, USDP and TUSD deposits will be halted from September 23 and no new deposits will be supported from that date. Further one can read: “In order to improve liquidity and capital efficiency for users, WazirX will implement automatic BUSD conversion for the existing USDC, USDP and TUSD stablecoins in a ratio of 1:1.”

WazirX follows Binance, who announced at the beginning of September that they would only support BUSD on their platform. According to this, an automatic conversion for the USD coin is to be introduced from September 29th. As with the Indian provider, the existing USDC balance is automatically converted into the stablecoin BUSD. To a certain extent, the two exchanges deprive their customers of the right to choose the stablecoin of their choice. More about this here.

Rumored WazirX acquisition by Binance

It stands to reason that the Mumbai-based exchange has been acquired by Binance — or is at least in talks of an acquisition. Binance itself reported an acquisition of WazirX back in November 2019 at a cost of $10 million. The blog post from that time shows the cooperation between the two exchanges.

However, Binance denies this supposed takeover. As early as 2019, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao clarified that “a transaction was never completed. Binance has never owned any interest in Zanmai Labs, the company that powers WazirX.” Also questionable is the step taken by CZ in August when it offered users of WazirX promptedto transfer the cryptocurrencies held there to Binance.

Beware monopoly

WazirX is considered to be the largest crypto exchange in India with over 200 cryptocurrencies available. With a population of almost 1.4 billion people, the country is at the top of the world, right behind China. Binance, meanwhile, is laying claim to the throne of the world’s largest crypto exchange. A connection between the two giants centralizes decision-making power: exchanges decide which stablecoin investors use.