Zebpay trading shuts down amid regulatory pressure in India

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One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in India, Zebpay, has called it quits.

Last week, Zebpay announced that it is ceasing all digital currency-related trading on its platform, effective Sept. 28. The exchange cited the “extremely difficult” conditions that crypto-related businesses had to operate in recently as the reason behind its shutdown.

We are stopping our exchange. At 4 PM today, we will cancel unexecuted orders & credit your coins to your Zebpay wallet. No new orders will be accepted. The Zebpay wallet will work even after the exchange stops.

Read more: https://t.co/W8ygzPIYz1 pic.twitter.com/tPWCnyu7Yu

— ZebPay (@zebpay) September 28, 2018

In a blog post, the exchange explained, “The recent apst has been extremely difficult. The curb on bank accounts has 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.”

The announcement comes several months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered banks across the country to stop offering financial services to crypto exchanges.

It has been three months since the RBI issued a deadline to the banking industry in the country. Despite the ban, Zebpay said it has continued serving customers in the hope that things would turn around. They did not want people in the country to miss opportunities in digital currencies; however, due to the hard conditions, they have had to stop their operations.

Since its launch in 2015, Zebpay has made a name for itself in India. It was currently among the few crypto exchanges that had managed to survive after the government crackdown on crypto exchanges in the country. At one point Zebpay was the most downloaded app hitting 200,000 downloads and with an annual turnover of INR500 crore.

The cryptocurrency exchanges community in India has suffered tremendously over the last couple of months. Many have moved to fight RBI’s ban, but the Supreme Court in India has yet to make a final decision on the matter. While waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision, exchanges in the country have turned to other alternatives, like offering crypto-to-crypto only trading, just stay afloat.