In April 2018, the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, initiated a major crackdown on the trade and purchase of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin within its borders. RBI Deputy Governor Bibhu Kanungo declared that all RBI-regulated entities are to “stop having business relationships with entities dealing with virtual currencies forthwith and unwind the existing relationships in a period of three months time.”
This set a series of events in motion that would disrupt the blossoming crypto ecosystem in India. Crypto exchanges shut down due to regulatory pressure and crypto entrepreneurs were arrested. Despite this, in less than 18 months following the ban, Binance made the decision to buy out WazirX, India’s biggest crypto exchange.