Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, has denied that the exchange owns any equity in Zanmai Labs, the company behind the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX.
The revelation came after India’s Enforcement Directorate decided to freeze WazirX’s account due to allegations of money laundering.
Zhao stated in the Aug. 5 Twitter thread that Binance did not complete the acquisition of WazirX, as claimed in a blog post published on November 21, 2019. CZ stated:
“Binance has never – at any point – owned any shares of Zanmai Labs, the entity operating WazirX.”
He went on to say that it only provides WazirX with wallet services and an integration that uses off-chain transactions to save on network fees. According to CZ:
“WazirX is responsible (for) all other aspects of the WazirX exchange, including user sign-up, KYC, trading and initiating withdrawals.”
Zhao also stated that the recent allegations about WazirX’s operations are concerning and do not align with Binance’s values as it collaborates with law enforcement around the world.
WazirX, according to CZ, has been uncooperative with Binance. He claimed that Binance had requested the transfer of the WazirX system source code as recently as February but had been turned down.
Zhao advised WazirX users to transfer their funds to his exchange as he “could disable WazirX wallets on a tech level, but we can’t/won’t do that” to not hurt the users, he added.
Binance’s official website still displayed the announcement of its WazirX acquisition as of press time.
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