Opinion: Police Tactics Are Chilling India's Crypto Winter Further
If success has many fathers, then a crypto exchange in the eye of a money-laundering storm has become an orphan.
After Indian law enforcement froze $8 million in WazirX assets, Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao denied owning the country's largest crypto exchange.
Binance's November 2019 blog post, which had announced the takeover, now comes with a postscript: “The ‘acquisition' described in this blog was limited to an agreement to purchase certain assets and intellectual property of WazirX. Binance did not purchase any equity (and does not own any equity) in Zanmai Labs, the entity operating WazirX and established by the original founders.”
One of those founders, however, disputes this version of the deal. Nischal Shetty, now based in Dubai according to media reports, contends that Binance indeed controls WazirX — it owns the domain name and could shut down the platform. The only thing that isn't under the thumb of the world's largest crypto exchange is Zanmai, Shetty argues.
“Naturally, if Binance desires control of Zanmai, they can acquire shares,” he tweeted. So why doesn't it, if as Shetty claims, it was interested in doing so as late as February?
CZ, as the Binance CEO is popularly known, won't be so foolish as to walk into the lair of India's dreaded Enforcement Directorate to stake a claim on Zanmai.
Certainly not after the ED's Aug. 5 press release that alleges Zanmai owns WazirX — and that the crypto exchange was used to launder money by predatory Chinese loan apps. (In a press release, Zanmai said it co-operates the platform with Binance and is in the position of any other intermediary “whose platform may have been misused.”)
The dodgy apps rented the balance sheets of Indian nonbank lenders and vanished
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