Indian crypto exchange WazirX hits record high in trading volume amid regulatory uncertainty

A major cryptocurrency exchange in India, WazirX, recently reached a record-high in trading volume before experiencing an outage.

WazirX records over $270M in daily trading volume

Indian crypto exchange WazirX recorded more than $270 million in trading volume within 24 hours, reaching an all-time high for any exchange in the country in history, according to CEO Nischal Shetty.

However, shortly after announcing its all-time high trades, an outage occurred caused by system failures for more than four hours. According to Shetty, the crypto exchange “hit some internal limits,” which were set by its infrastructure providers. 

During the outage, the exchange’s 1.8 million users were affected, as they could not see any funds in their accounts. Shetty explained that as parts of the systems were down, one of the systems that shows the funds value was malfunctioning. He wrote:

When one part of the system fails, it causes a ripple effect on all the services. Takes time to bring things back up due to the scale at which we operate. Please have patience, it’ll be back up soon. Team is on it.

Reassuring that the wallet is safe, the CEO reported that after four hours, the users could see their funds in their accounts again, but trading was still disabled.

Launched in March 2018, WazirX was acquired by Binance in 2019. According to CoinMarketCap, WazirX was in the top 27 crypto exchanges globally based on traffic, liquidity, trading volumes — as well as confidence in its legitimacy. 

The surge in trading volume in the Indian exchange also follows the country's regulatory uncertainty over cryptocurrencies. Indian law-makers previously called for a blanket ban on the new asset class, impacting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and other crypto investors in the country.

The ban in India could penalize those in the country who mine, trade, possess, or transfer digital assets.