Zebpay, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in India shuts down. This move is in follow up of
RBI’s restriction on Banks. RBI has restricted banks from providing financial services to crypto
exchanges.

Zebpay the crypto exchange in its blog post stated, “At 4 p.m. today (28 September 2018), we
will cancel all unexecuted crypto-to-crypto orders and credit your coins/tokens back to your
Zebpay wallet. No new orders will be accepted until further notice.”

The Indian Finance Ministry declared that there is no protection offered for trading in any virtual
currencies.

The company stated in its blog, “Lakhs of Indians took their first step into the world of Bitcoin
using the Zebpay app. Your trust has been the pillar of our strength. Despite regulatory and
banking problems along our journey, we continued to look for solutions as we did not want India
to miss the bus of digital assets that power the public blockchain.”

However, the relieving information for those who have been using the crypto exchange is that
the Zebpay wallet will continue to work even if the exchange shuts down. “You are free to
deposit and withdraw coins/tokens into your wallet” it stated.

The company further added, “However, the recent past has been complicated. The curb on bank
accounts have crippled our, and our customer’s, ability to transact business meaningfully. At this
point, we are unable to find a reasonable way to conduct the cryptocurrency exchange business”

Post the April-5 circular; the RBI disabled the deposits and withdrawal of INR on the mobile
app.

The Finance Ministry in the past year stated “Virtual currencies are not backed by government
fiat. These are also not legal tender. Hence, VCs are not currencies. These are also being
described as ‘Coins’ There is, however, no physical attribute to these coins. Therefore, VC is
neither currencies nor coins.”

The RBI’s circular was issued after the ministry learned that many companies are dealing with
several types of digital currencies, which according to the RBI does not have any intrinsic value.
This ultimately leaves the investors at risk. Therefore, the RBI initiated the move to prevent
regulated banking bodies from withdrawing their support of any kind to such companies and
exchanges.

A couple of cryptocurrency exchanges like WazirX and Koinex Loop are coming up with a peer-
to-peer model that will make virtual currency trade possible without making use of the normal
banking channels. The P2P service from these exchanges will be based on escrow. A recent
content “Koinex Upgrade 3.0.0: INR revived!

“Combining the principles of decentralization, trust, security, data privacy, and ease-of-use,
Loop will complete the full circle for digital assets trading in India.” This move is expected to be a cornerstone that will help with the acceptance of the blockchain technology in India.