Virtual currency exchange Zebpay shuts down following RBI freeze

One of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Zebpay, shut down its business on Friday. In a blog post, the firm said all pending transactions would be cancelled and remaining cryptocurrency units would be credited back to users’ wallets. Zebpay co-founder Mahin Gupta did not answer phone calls.

Though the company said it would continue to run its wallet service, shutting down of the exchange is a big blow to the virtual currency ecosystem in India.

The Supreme Court is yet to announce its stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum after the Reserve Bank of India directed all regulated banks and institutions to stop providing services to these exchanges.

“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,” Zebpay said.

Launched in 2015, Zebpay was one of the largest entities in the cryptocurrency business in India. The company says it had 3 million users across its mobile apps.

With the RBI ban, all cryptocurrency players in India are in a fix. Even as exchanges tweaked their operation models and started facilitating peer-to-peer transactions, transaction volumes from new users fell.

Other such exchanges are lobbying for a favourable regulatory regime.