Binance denies buying WazirX and threatened to pull the plug on the company’s accounts

In November 2019, Binance published a blog post stating that it had bought the Indian exchange WazirX. WazirX executives also openly confirmed this.Last summer, however, Indian authorities accused WazirX of helping 16 fintech companies launder money.After that, Binance immediately began distancing itself from the exchange.Binance then changed its blog message: instead of buying, it said “an agreement to buy certain assets and intellectual property.”On August 5, Changpeng Zhao also said that Binance does not own shares in Zanmai Labs, which operates WazirX.On January 26, Binance sent a letter to WazirX demanding that it comply by the end of this month or Binance will terminate its service agreement with WazirX by February 3, 2023.Notably, 90% of WazirX’s reserves are held on Binance. These are mostly user assets.First, Binance demanded that WazirX publish an “explanatory statement” in which it retracts previous statements by WazirX co-founder Nishal Shetty that Binance owns WazirX. Second, the company demanded that WazirX remove all references to Binance in its terms of service.For its part, Zanmai responded to Binance’s demands, saying that the letter it sent was unethical and used “media pressure and threats to force the exchange to issue false and misleading statements as clarifications.” The head of the company also refused to deny his statements and said that WazirX was under full control of Binance. He provided correspondence and information about the amounts that Binance managed to earn on trading commissions after the transaction.