Zebpay, one of India’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, is winding up its operations. Zebpay will be stopping all its exchange business from today itself, i.e. September 28, 2018. Company, however, said that it will continue to operate its wallet services.
The development seems to be direct consequence of RBI’s recent diktat to ban banks from undertaking any cryptocurrency related transactions.
“The curb on bank accounts has crippled our, and our customers’, ability to transact business meaningfully. At this point, we are unable to find a reasonable way to conduct the cryptocurrency exchange business. As a result, we are stopping our exchange activities,” Zebpay said in its official blog post.
Although cryptocurrency companies had dragged RBI to the Supreme Court, the top judiciary body is yet to deliver a verdict over the matter. The long wait for the verdict clearly seems to have taken toll on companies like Zebpay.
Founded three years ago, Zebpay cashed on bitcoin’s phenomenal rise to emerge as one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Such was Zebpay’s success that in very short span of time it managed to cloak annual turnover of Rs 500 crore. When bitcoin’s price was hitting rooftop last year, it was adding close to 300,000 to 400,000 users every month.
With Zebpay pulling down the plug, the future of other top cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin, WazirX, and Koinex now looks highly uncertain.
