WazirX's Battle With Binance Reignited After WRX Token Moved to "Innovation Zone"

The spat between Binance and Indian exchange WazirX seems to have resumed with the world's largest exchange indicating it may delist WazirX's native WRX tokens.

The escalation began on May 10, 2023, when Binance tweeted to say it will move some assets, including the WRX token, into the "Innovation Zone."

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao then re-tweeted that tweet with an explanation: "As some of you suggested, instead of direct delistings, we will move "no-progress projects" to innovation zone first. If they still don't improve, we may delist. One more intermediate step."

They are 17 other tokens besides WRX that Binance has shifted to its innovation zone.

"The Innovation Zone was introduced to give Binance users a place to trade innovative projects with higher volatility and risk compared to other listed tokens," a Binance blog said.

Six days later, on May 16, a WazirX blog claimed they had no control over the WRX tokens and gave a breakdown of "the list of wallet addresses where Binance is currently holding a total of 580.78 Million locked and unlocked WRX tokens."

"We hope this clarification addresses any confusion surrounding the management of WRX," the WazirX blog said.

The WRX token has seen a sharp price decline since May 10, falling from $0.1459 to 0.1243 on May 24, and trading volumes have dipped from $622,128 to $518,980, according to data on CoinMaketCap.

"Users are blaming WazirX but WazirX can't do anything about it because control is with Binance," an industry source who did not wish to be named told CoinDesk. "When Binance, the biggest exchange in the world, says it will delist a token it affects the token badly, both in terms of price and volatility."

The public spat between Binance and WazirX has been ongoing since August 2022 and is focused on the true ownership of the Indian exchange.

In this latest episode, WazirX also alleges that Binance is responsible for conducting the quarterly burn of WRX tokens and has not conducted them for the past five quarters or since Jan 2022 onwards.

Burns refer to the permanent deletion of tokens from circulating supply by sending them to an inaccessible address. This may sometimes lead to an increase in the prices of such tokens as supply decreases.

"Binance is upping the stakes, turning the screws. They are doing all it takes to throttle the token or actually kill it," the source said.

Binance didn't immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for comment. WazirX declined to comment.

Read More: Binance-WazirX Dispute Rages as the Indian Crypto Exchange Is Told to Move Funds Out of Binance