WazirX is India's Crypto Exchange start-up. The team is striving to be touted as the best Indian Trading exchange. Indian investors have a plethora of crypto-options to invest via this trading exchange. We bring forth to our readers a transcript with the founder.
Tell us something about yourself? What does Nischal love to do apart from startups?
I graduated as a software engineer in 2007. Worked for a corporate for 2 years. Then joined a startup (Burrp) and worked there for 1.5 years. Quit my job to work on Crowdfire, my first startup. Scaled it to 20 Million users and multi-million revenues. I was part of the first ever Forbes India 30 under 30 list in 2014. I’ve primarily been a software developer for a major part of my life. I still get involved in architecture discussions with the team but don’t get the time to do it always. I make it a point to travel to one new country every year as I believe traveling and getting exposed to different cultures around the world helps us open up our perspective. I’m on a mission to involve every Indian in the Blockchain revolution.
How did you come up with the Idea of building any complete Indian exchange?
Honestly, building an exchange wasn’t the first thought I had in mind. I decided to build WazirX after a string of frustrating experiences on other exchanges. As a user, I felt that the product was substandard, and the communication not transparent enough.
What was your vision behind WazirX?
The vision is simple: To get every Indian involved in the Blockchain revolution. And that can only be accomplished with a quality product which is simple to use.
The name WazirX has an Indian Royal touch, whats the story behind the same?
“Wazir” is the Queen piece in chess. It’s also the strongest piece and can play any move. With WazirX, we want to provide you with the most powerful piece of cryptocurrency trading software you deserve! We want to provide every Indian with a product that surpasses every other global product in terms of quality. We want to make sure we involve the community while building this product so that we build it in the right way.
What separates WazirX from other leading Indian cryptocurrency exchanges?
Our open and transparent communication policy. Whether it’s about app fee, features, policies, we make sure that our users are in the loop always. Product: WazirX is available on all the platforms - Web, Android, and iOS. It has a beautiful and simple UI. Our team: We’re a strong team with prior experience of building a product with a massive (20M) user base globally.
WRX: It’s India’s first coin backed by a cryptocurrency exchange. WRX will be an integral part of our trading platform in the future.
The Income Tax dept. is cracking down on various crypto-exchanges of late. Do you think the government is being unnecessarily strict?
I think the government is taking precautions while it comes up with the right set of regulations. I’m positive that the government will come up with regulations that would be favorable to running crypto exchanges and at the same time ensure that there’s no fraud in the ecosystem. As a country, we need to make India a global superpower in the Blockchain world and crypto exchanges will play an integral role in this.
What kind legal challenges a cryptocurrency exchange faces in India?
As on today: Cryptocurrency isn’t recognised as a commodity/asset (by SEBI) or as a currency (by RBI). Hence, the confusion. Because there isn’t any clear stand on cryptos, there’s a lot of misinformation being printed in the media. This leads to unnecessary panic and wealth erosion of the common people. I would urge the media to research more and exercise restrain instead of trying to sensationalize every news around cryptos. Printing an informed articles around cryptos will win the trust of the public and I look forward to more people in the media to do this.
What do you think is the future of cryptocurrencies in India like?
Regulated ;)
We know you as the co-founder of Crowdfire. How has your experience in building Crowdfire helped you with WazirX?
Crowdfire has taught us how to build a world class product and scale it to millions of users. It has taught us how to build an amazing community of users and how to listen to them and build the right things. We’re using all these learnings to expedite the growth WazirX
Do you believe that the blockchain technology in the longer run, will be a bigger game-changer than cryptocurrencies?
Blockchain is the car and cryptos are the fuel. They co-exist and it will always be so.
Where do you see WazirX five years from now?
As the largest and most-trusted cryptocurrency exchange of India.
Any pointers for Cryptocurrency traders & investors?
Buy the right crypto assets you believe in based on the team and utility of the asset. Picking the right crypto asset would turn out to be a game changer in the future. But exercise caution and invest only what you’re ready to lose. Put a very small percentage of your investment into cryptos and keep yourself updated about what’s happening in the ecosystem. And most importantly, HODL, HODL, HODL!
And thus the Wazir X team is leaving no stones unturned in reaching out to Indian investors/traders and also in bringing forward the digital revolution of cryptocurrency trading to the forefront of Indian financial markets.
Do comment if you have any question for the WazirX Team. Also, you can follow Nischal on Twitter.