Hello and Namaste Everyone,
Last month WazirX Indian crypto exchange was hacked and hackers stole crypto worth $230 million. This amount is big and in Indian currency, it is 2000 crore INR. It is the first time any Indian Crypto exchange has been hacked and this is a very sad situation for Indian Crypto users. The exchange is not responding well and because of that users are struggling and they are having a hard time. Through this hack 45% of the crypto holdings are stolen and the remaining 55% is also at risk. It is at risk because the exchange is not responding and they have not allowed the withdrawal of remaining crypto funds. They have started the Fiat currency withdrawal from 26th Aug and that too for 33% of the balance in their wallet.
Now in this post, I'm not going to talk about this hack event instead I want to bring the attention to another matter related to the wallet. There is another crypto exchange in India and it is called Zeppay. It is also a registered and FIU-compliant exchange in the country and they charge a membership fee for the wallet. Although this amount is not very high, there is something expected from the users to pay if they are inactive.
They also have conditions like-
- If you trade once a month then you do not need to pay any fee and it is the case of zero fee for that month for you.
- If you also participate in lending for more than 30 days then you need not pay the wallet membership fee.
If in case you don't trade and you are not active then you need to pay an amount of 0.0001 BTC as a membership fee. The exchange justifies why they are charging this amount and why it is worth it according to them. Below is the snapshot that I have taken from the email and because I registered on their exchange so I get this email often from them.
Zebpay email
They highlight that they are protecting wallets in all possible ways and they spend a lot of resources on this. They also have insurance of $100 million which is a good amount. They follow multi-level security protocols to ensure the highest level of security against all types of attacks. Even they keep a combination of hot and cold wallets to make them more safe and secure. They also keep 98% of the crypto holding in multi-sig cold wallets which means more security for the user funds.
Although other practices are good that any exchange is expected to follow on top of that I can see insurance which is new for me. I have not seen any Indian exchanges talking about it and this is the first one who says that they have insurance in place. I wish Wazirx had done the insurance so this way they could solved this problem easily.
I am registered on the exchange but I have not performed any transactions. I think this is the reason why they are sending me this email notification that they will charge but because I do not have any funds there they cannot charge me in this case unless I deposit something. I'm just sharing an option that is worth exploring more but I'm not saying that it is a good practice to keep the fund even in the Zebpay wallet. Self-custody is the best option but if we need to choose the exchange to keep some funds for trading then also I think we need to go through these majors if the exchange follows or not to have better safety for our funds.
Thank you so much
Stay Safe
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
