In an attempt to gain a stronghold of the growing Indian market, famous cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance has announced the acquisition of WazirX, one of the leading Bitcoin exchanges in the country. The idea is to make it easier for people in the nation to have access to crypto assets.

Binance itself broke the news on its official webpage in the last few hours. The announcement explained that people in the Asian country will be able to use their local currency, Indian rupees (INR) to acquire and sell crypto assets through the Binance Fiat Gateway. They could do it as early as November 25.

“The young demographic in India give an edge to adopt and build on new financial technologies, and I believe this will play a vital role in making India a global blockchain innovation center to also spur cryptocurrency adoption throughout the larger public in the country,” said CZ (Changpeng Zhao), Binance CEO.

Commitment to the Indian People

The leader of Binance also stated that “the acquisition of WazirX shows our commitment and dedication to the Indian people and strengthen the blockchain ecosystem in India as well as another step forward in achieving the freedom of money.”

According to the project’s roadmap, WazirX’s auto-matching tool will be integrated into the exchange’s recently announced Fiat Gateway in 2020’s Q1. That way, Binance.com users will earn the ability to place orders on the exchange to acquire USDT against INR. The resource will let any crypto asset available on Binance to become accessible for people that get USDT through WazirX.

“Building fiat-to-crypto bridges remain a key mission for Binance, and WazirX will help this by providing a simple and cohesive way to purchase cryptocurrencies in a country which is home to more than a billion people,” were the words of Wei Zhou, currently providing his services as the CFO of Binance.

On the other hand, WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty observed that “the next phase of mass adoption for Crypto will arise from developing nations around the world. India with more than a billion people is primed for massive crypto adoption and this acquisition by Binance gives us the opportunity to not only cater to India but every developing nation where fiat on-ramps have to be built. The acquisition is yet another step towards achieving our shared mission with Binance of decentralizing the world.”

Kashif Raza, the Co-Founder of Crypto Kanoon (a news and analysis platform covering Indian crypto regulation developments) told a prominent site in the industry that the development is welcomed by the community. He said that Binance’s recent acquisition provides a morale boost to a country in dire need of one, given the uncertain landscape of digital assets in India.

Uncertain Future

And it is because of the uncertain nature of the crypto industry in India that WazirX agreed to form an alliance with Binance, one of the sector’s heavyweights, according to Raza’s latest remarks.

The murky crypto regulation landscape in India forced WazirX to shift its focus and morph into a P2P platform in the summer of 2018, after the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to ban banks’ dealings with crypto-related companies.

“Fiat ramps play a critical role in deciding the size and adoption of cryptomarket. Binance has all the major traders in the world and WazirX has tried and tested technology for next-generation peer to peer exchange, together we can drive mass adoption across the globe by solving fiat ramps,” said Siddharth Menon, WazirX COO.

By Andres Chavez

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