Another Indian cryptocurrency exchange, Koinex, has launched its trading platform, offering 23 trading pairs with no fees whatsoever. This launch comes right after the Reserve bank of India issued a ban on banks and other financial institutions to provide services to entities dealing with digital currencies.
Koinex’s Crypto-to-Crypto Trading
Crypto exchange Koinex declared last week, “We are delighted to announce the commencement of crypto-to-crypto trading on our platform,” detailing that:
“We are going live with not just one or two crypto-crypto pairs; we are launching a total of 15 token pairs, all at the same time!…This is the largest crypto-crypto pair offering by any Indian exchange and to add to this, the trading fees will be zero.”
On Saturday the exchange announced the addition of 8 more cryptocurrency trading pairs, programmed to go live on Saturday night.
Concerning deposits, the exchange said that “INR deposits via UPI and Netbanking are now live with payment gateway 2. Deposit fee is 1.18% for UPI and 2% for Netbanking.” However, Koinex restated that “all other payment methods are discontinued…All INR withdrawals are temporarily halted.”
23 New Trading Pairs
Koinex currently has 19 coins listed for trading against the Indian rupee. Its 24-hour trading volume for all cryptocurrencies is approximately $5.5 million, according to Coinmarketcap.
The platform supports nine bitcoin trading pairs, six ether, and eight ripple –a total of 23 pairs. Bitcoin and ether trading pairs are already live and ripple pairs are set to go live on Saturday night, the exchange clarified. “For the first time in the crypto world, Koinex proudly presents XRP-based trading market with 8 XRP pairs going live tonight.”
“The tokens available in the bitcoin market will be ethereum (ETH/BTC), litecoin (LTC/BTC), TRON (TRX/BTC), ripple (XRP/BTC), omisego (OMG/BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH/BTC), EOS (EOS/BTC), nucleus vision (NCASH/BTC), and request (REQ/BTC),” wrote Koinex.
Evading RBI’s Order
Zebpay, probably the largest and most popular Indian cryptocurrency exchange, also launched its own crypto trading pair, ETH/BTC, last week.
Both Zebpay and Koinex made available their crypto trading services after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred banks and financial institutions under its administration from dealing “in virtual currencies or provide services for facilitating any person or entity in dealing with or settling virtual currencies.”
“Such services include maintaining accounts, registering, trading, settling, clearing, giving loans against virtual tokens, accepting them as collateral, opening accounts of exchanges dealing with them and transfer / receipt of money in accounts relating to purchase/ sale of virtual currencies,” said Koinex regarding the ban.
The exchange cautioned that RBI’s order could produce “a disruption in [its] banking services” that “may affect our capacity to service withdrawals and deposits seamlessly.”
Kali Digital Eco-Systems filed a lawsuit against the RBI for unconstitutional measures. The Delhi High Court has allowed the company’s petition to go through and issued a notice to the central bank. Other exchange services are also planning to contest the regulator as a group.
