WazirX’s Tumultuous 24 hours – Launches NFT Marketplace, Crosses $200M Daily Volume, Faces Downtime And Recovers

Table of Contents

• One Of India's First NFT Marketplaces
• Daily Trading Volume Crosses $200 Million
• WazirX Undergoes Downtime For Upgrades

WazirX, a Binance-owned Indian cryptocurrency exchange, announced the launch of its NFT marketplace on Twitter:

"Launching decentralized NFT marketplace. Buy, sell, trade digital assets & intellectual properties, including art pieces, audio files, videos, programs & even tweets. Pre-register & join our Telegram channel to stay updated."

WazirX has created an NFT marketplace for Indian artists and creators and has invited artists, creators, and buyers "to come narrate the new Indian story," as stated on their website. Creators can place their NFTs for auction and earn royalty.

One Of India's First NFT Marketplaces

India is a country symbolized by the diversity and plurality of its culture. It has one of the world's largest collections of music, folk traditions, performing arts, rites and rituals, paintings, and writings. It was only a matter of time before creators in the subcontinent joined the NFT boom. 

WazirX's NFT initiative is backed by Canada-based entrepreneur Sandesh B Suvarna with film actor/producer Vishakha Singh as an advisor. Suvarna and Singh have previously worked together in the celebrity fan engagement space. 

WazirX will only levy gas fees from its customers and not charge them for creating and listing NFTs on the platform. The gas fee will be paid to miners in respective currencies. WazirX also plans to remove all costs eventually to make minting NFTs cost-effective for artists and creators. 

Nishchal Shetty, the founder of WazirX, said,

"It(NFT) will truly transform the market in our rapidly digitizing world with a growing interest in NFT across the globe. Both digital creators and collectors stand to benefit from the WazirX NFT marketplace. As of now, we are working around certain nitty-gritty to make NFTs more lucrative for our customers."

Daily Trading Volume Crosses $200 Million

WazirX reached the 27th position of top global crypto exchanges based on traffic, liquidity, trading volumes, and confidence in trading volumes' legitimacy, as seen on CoinMarketCap. The 24-hour trading volume stood at $218 million, with 137 coins available for trading to customers.

This is the first time WazirX crossed $200 million in daily trading volume since its launch in March 2018, the highest trading volume by any crypto exchange in the Indian market. Daily trading volume denotes the scale at which the exchange operates - the higher the volume, the higher the liquidity, which ensures that traders get the best possible prices.  

WazirX aims to hit $1 billion in trading volume per day in 2021. Shetty further added,

"We're working hard on bringing positive crypto regulations in India. Our Finance Minister has stated that India will not be banning crypto. We believe the Indian market is growing rapidly and our government will bring in positive crypto regulations."

WazirX Undergoes Downtime For Upgrades

WazirX required a thirty-minute long downtime to upgrade their database while seeing a surge of orders. Sign-ups, trading, and Fiat deposits & withdrawals were unavailable during the time. 

The upgrade has enabled the order cancellation option. Users can cancel open orders now if desired. The time allocated to cancel pending orders is ten minutes, after which the exchange will restart order placement for everyone. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.