India-based crypto platform WazirX sought massive controversy, first after Enforcement Directorate (ED) attacks on its parent organisation Zanmai Lab and afterward world’s biggest crypto trade Finance totally abandoning the Nischal Shetty-run stage.
Changpeng Zhao, pioneer and CEO of Binance, said in a tweet thread late on Friday that the organisation “does not own any equity in Zanmai Labs, the entity operating WazirX and established by the original founders”.
“On 21 Nov 2019, Binance published a blog post that it had ‘acquired’ WazirX. This transaction was never completed. Binance has never – at any point – owned any shares of Zanmai Labs, the entity operating WazirX,” Zhao contended.
The Binance CEO said that new claims regarding the activity of WazirX and how the stage is overseen by Zanmai Labs are of deep concern to Binance.
“Binance collaborates with law enforcement agencies all around the world. We would be happy to work with ED in any way possible,” he tweeted.
The ED on Friday looked through the overseer of WazirX digital currency and froze its bank resources worth Rs 64.67 Crore “for assisting accused instant loan App companies in laundering of fraud money via purchase and transfer of virtual crypto assets”.
Zhao said that Binance just gives wallet administrations to WazirX as a tech solution.
“WazirX is responsible for all other aspects of the WazirX exchange, including user sign-up, KYC, trading and initiating withdrawals,” he said.
WazirX is the largest crypto exchange in India and its annual trading volume exceeded $43 billion in 2021.
Shetty, co-founder of WazirX, disputed Zhao’s claims in a series of tweets.
“More facts about WazirX: Binance owns WazirX domain name, Binance has root access to AWS servers, Binance has all the Crypto assets, Binance has all the Crypto profits. Don’t confuse Zanmai and WazirX”, he tweeted.
(inputs from Ians)