India's Largest Bitcoin Exchange Shuts Down Following Bank Account Freeze

Cryptocurrency exchanges in India have been under immense pressure since April this year when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cracked down on the ecosystem, asking all the financial institutions of the country “not to deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities dealing with or settling virtual currencies.”
Sputnik

New Delhi (Sputnik): Zebpay, one of India's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, announced the closure of all its services on Friday. Zebpay said that due to the prohibition imposed by the country's central bank on cryptocurrency exchanges from opening bank accounts, it is unable to sustain the business anymore.

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"Despite regulatory and banking problems along our journey, we continued to look for solutions as we did not want India to miss the bus of digital assets that power the public blockchain. However, the recent past has been extremely difficult," Zebpay said in a statement.

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Zebpay has announced that it is suspending all its activities from September 28, thereby canceling all unexecuted crypto-to-crypto orders and credit coins/tokens back to its customers' Zebpay wallets. No new orders will be accepted until further notice, it added. 

Nevertheless, the Zebpay wallet will continue to work even after the exchange closes down. "You are free to deposit and withdraw coins/tokens into your wallet," the crypto firm added.

"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's statement further read.

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India's cryptocurrency exchanges had filed a case in the Supreme Court of India against the RBI order and other government agencies seeking direction to continue their operations. The Supreme Court is yet to issue a ruling on the matter. 

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