Crowdfire Co-Founder Plans to Launch Indian Cryptocurrency Trading Exchange
Eight years after launching the now popular social media management tool Crowdfire, its co-founder Nischal Shetty has announced plans to launch an Indian cryptocurrency exchange in March 2018.
Bitcoin Mining, to Startup, to Crypto Exchange Founder
Frustrated with experiences with other Indian cryptocurrency exchanges, Nischal has decided to launch WazirX, a more efficient and transparent exchange for trading in cryptocurrencies. For Nischal, this is not his first hand in the industry either, which he has been following since 2009. He has stated that he was one of the early bitcoin miners back then.
In a post published on Medium, Shetty highlights how current exchanges are opaque when it comes to sharing information with their users. He explained that these same exchanges are also not providing an explicit fee for services across their platforms.
After long deliberation, he and other Crowdfire co-founders decided to launch what they’re touting, “India’s most trusted bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange.”
Initially, WazirX will provide a single platform for users to trade bitcoin, ethereum, ripple and litecoin with more digital currencies to follow.
Talking about why there is a need for more transparency while handling a client’s money, he said:
“Transparency is the best way forward. People trust us with their money, we need to provide them with clear information on what’s happening behind the scenes, why something’s not working right, what features we’re building, what fees we charge them etc. It’s also our responsibility to inform users prior to making changes that affect them.”
The name WazirX is derived from the chess piece “Wazir,” which is also a popularly used term in South Asian countries. As the Wazir is the strongest player in chess and can make or break a game, WazirX too wants to become the most powerful player in the cryptocurrency exchange space in India.
When asked how he will fulfill his promise of creating a truly world class cryptocurrency exchange, he added, “My team and I know this isn’t a trivial problem to solve, but we’ve always loved challenges. The challenge of building a global product from India and scaling it to 19 Million users was something we’ve been successfully solving all this while with Crowdfire.”
As previously stated, WazirX will be launched in March 2018. It will become India’s first cryptocurrency exchange with its token (WRX) and has already begun offering 500 of them free of cost to those who signup and complete their KYC details in the pre-launch phase.
A maximum of 150 million WRX tokens has been reserved for technology enthusiasts, early adopters and traders using WazirX. The total number of WRX tokens that will ever be created has been capped at one billion.
The main features of WazirX are its best in class security, super fast KYC, lighting speed transactions, simple and efficient design and its availability over both Android and IOS platforms.
Nischal Shetty believes that blockchain technology is a once in a generation opportunity and hence, must be wholly leveraged to its maximum potential. He remarked that India had been a follower of trends for long, but now it has a chance to become a leader in the blockchain space.
He sees WazirX as the gateway for more than one billion Indian citizens to the world of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
So far, there has been no clarity by the Indian authorities over the legality of virtual currencies and their trading in the country. Nischal, in an earlier tweet, had said that since the Income Tax authorities are taxing gains made from trading in cryptocurrencies, trading in bitcoin and other coins are by default legal.
