India’s Belfrics exchange restarts trading amid RBI crypto ban

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A cryptocurrency exchange in India has resumed trading services some five months after its operations came to a standstill early this year. On Tuesday, Belfrics announced that it has also added four more cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin Cash, Ether, Ripple and Litecoin—to its platform.

Belfricshalted its operations back in January after banks stopped providing payment solutions to the exchange. At the time, CEO Praveenkumar Vijayakumar told Inc42 that their decision was made after “many payment service providers (PSP) stopped giving services to exchanges” in the country.

Things got worse for Belfrics and other cryptocurrency exchanges in India after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) banned all banks and financial institutions from providing services to cryptocurrency companies. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India admitted that the ban on exchanges was rushed without proper research on the matter.

Jabeer KM, COO of Kuala Lumpur-based Belfrics Group, said the company resumed its operations despite RBI reservations because they believe that RBI will soon regularize crypto trade. He further added that their move to resume operations is in preparation for the anticipated regulations towards legalizing crypto trade in India.

In addition to BTC, Belfrics customers are also able to trade BCH, ETH, XRP, and LTC on the platform. Belfrics also plans to add 20 more coins on its platform in the next six months. Jabeer also added that the company plans to increase its clientele to at least 2,500,000 new traders by the end of 2018.Belfrics customers will also enjoy peer-to-peer trading on the platform.

Whether the ban will be lifted or not remains to be the decision of the SupremeCourt on July 3. The hearing date had been scheduled for July 20 but was moved up to July 3, two days before the RBI ban takes effect on July 5. Exchanges in India are eagerly waiting for the outcome of the case.