File photo of tokens representing various cryptocurrencies
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Indian crypto exchange WazirX has published its proof of reserves, or data that shows the assets it holds, according to a company press release on Wednesday.
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The crypto exchange that serves over 15 million customers shared that its total holdings equalled around 284.82 million USDT, via the Coin Gabbar analytics platform.
USDT is a stablecoin, or a type of cryptocurrency that is meant to reflect the value of the US Dollar and remain relatively steady when compared to volatile assets such as Bitcoin.
By total value and percentage of holdings, WazirX’s top crypto assets were the meme coin Shiba Inu [SHIB], Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], the meme coin Dogecoin [DOGE], and Polygon [MATIC] respectively.
About 19% of WazirX’s holdings were made up of SHIB, at a value of roughly $54,348,264, followed by $23,609,473 worth of Bitcoin, according to Coin Gabbar.
However, Coin Gabbar posted a disclaimer which said that the statement was not meant to be an exhaustive or complete account of the “actual assets of reserves held by the exchange on behalf of its users or customers.”
WazirX assured customers in its statement that its reserves-to-liabilities ratio was more than 1:1, meaning that it should not theoretically face a liquidity crunch in case of major withdrawals. Such a shortage caused a number of crypto firms such as the FTX exchange and the Celsius lending platform to collapse abruptly last year.
2022 saw the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) freezing WazirX’s bank accounts while investigating allegations of money laundering. WazirX said the bank accounts were unfrozen in September.
There was also a clash between WazirX’s leadership and the international crypto exchange Binance over a lack of clarity as to whether or not Binance owned WazirX.
