In what can be termed as a strategic move to attract the growing millennial population in India, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has acquired the country’s leading peer-to-peer cryptocurrency platform WazirX.
The acquisition of India’s first-ever crypto exchange will enable Binance users to exchange Indian Rupees (INR) for crypto coins from as early as November 25 this year. In the first phase of integration, Binance customers can buy and sell cryptos with INR via the Binance Fiat Gateway.
In the second phase of integration, which will take place in Q1 of 2020, WazirX’s auto-matching engine will be directly integrated into the Binance Fiat Gateway which will make crypto transactions extremely easy for Indian clients on Binance. They will be able to make USDT purchases directly from their phones.
Meanwhile, the acquisition of WazirX by Binance, which will facilitate the exchange of fiat for crypto within India’s financial technology ecosystem, will be a win-win deal for both parties.
For Binance, this deal will prove to be an entry into the young demographic in India which could play a vital role in making the country a global blockchain innovation center. Besides, the acquisition of WazirX will be beneficial to Binance as it will prove to be a better place to penetrate developing markets. Given the fact that the next phase of mass adoption of cryptocurrency will arise from developing nations around the world, the deal is really a strategic move by Binance.
This is not the first time the world’s most popular centralized crypto exchange is showing its dedication and orientation to developing countries as potential areas of growth. For building fiat-to-crypto bridges, Binance had earlier launched Binance Uganda and invested in a couple of crypto projects from India.
Interestingly, the new development comes at a time when the Indian government has recently come out with a draft bill on the issue titled ‘Draft Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019’ which proposes fine or imprisonment up to 10 years or both for mining, holding, selling, issuing or using cryptocurrency.
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