The year-long dispute between Binance and Indian crypto exchange WazirX came to a head today with Binance notifying WazirX to withdraw all its user funds from Binance wallet and infrastructures. The holding company of WazirX is Zanmai Labs.
“On 26 January 2023, we offered Zanmai a choice between retracting the false public statements (and continuing to use our services) or terminating the use of our wallet service. Since Zanmai has refused to clarify their misleading statements, Zanmai has till 3 February 2023 (23:59 UTC) to remove the funds from the accounts that they used for WazirX’s operations,” Binance said in a blog on its website on Friday.
The relationship between Binance and WazirX began to sour last year when Indian law enforcement agencies initiated investigations into suspected money laundering activities at WazirX and froze one of its bank accounts with nearly $8 million in balance.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhou expressed concerns over how WazirX carries out its affairs, to which WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty had claimed that Binance owns WazirX. CZ refuted Shetty’s claim and said the exchange was offering only wallet services to WazirX.
In 2019, Binance claimed in a blog that it had acquired WazirX but during the public spat between CZ and Shetty in 2022, CZ claimed that the deal was never completed.
“It is in the interests of Binance and the public that Zanmai is not permitted to perpetuate false narratives on the basis of their use of Binance’s wallet services. We view such false claims as an attempt to shift the responsibility over WazirX’s operations to Binance,” the Binance blog said on Friday.
