Nischal Shetty of WazirX wants to launch India’s largest DEX
Nearly four months after a hack resulted in losses of over $230 million (approximately Rs. 1,900 crore), WazirX is still focused on restructuring its finances and finalizing its operational roadmap. In a virtual town hall held this week, founder Nischal Shetty revealed plans to launch a decentralized exchange (DEX) alongside the existing WazirX platform. Noting that a DEX could reduce the risks inherent in centralized exchanges, Shetty aims to establish India’s largest decentralized exchange within the next 12 months.
Centralized exchanges like WazirX serve as asset managers and maintain the private keys and funds within their systems. Their activities are aligned with government policies that require the collection of KYC data from users and an agreement to monitor user activities and flag suspicious activities. Decentralized exchanges, on the other hand, let users retain responsibility for their funds and private keys through non-custodial services. Furthermore, DEXs also offer more private transactions compared to their centralized counterparts.
Following the hack on one of WazirX’s multi-sig wallets operated by Liminal Custodies, Shetty believes there is a need to launch a new service that gives users more control over their funds and private keys.
“Coming to the new business initiative we are trying to come up with a decentralized exchange. This will be completely separate, not related to WazirX. People simply go back to using centralized exchange because of its ease of use and convenience. DEXes are seen as only for power users, very complicated, only accessible to really technically advanced users – otherwise it’s not for everyone. So the aim here, in light of the incident, is to give people an option to experience a safer and much better trading experience,” Shetty said.
Despite a significant blow to its credibility and reputation in the market, WazirX has already started initial development of the new platform. However, users have voiced criticism and often expressed frustration over the exchange’s slow approach to processing refunds since the attack.
The new platform also allows users to stake their crypto assets to support a blockchain network in exchange for rewards. The platform will additionally offer Futures Trading and Over-the-Counter desk for fast traders.
Meanwhile, WazirX is working with a legal consultancy firm called Kroll in Singapore to restructure its finances and refund its users. However, it has been made clear that affected users will only get a certain percentage of their lost money back – and not the full amount. The exchange believes that a restructuring plan should be completed by January 15.
