Are Indian crypto exchanges safer bets?

Are Indian crypto exchanges safer bets?

The recent FTX meltdown has sent shockwaves across Web3. FTX, which was once the world's third-largest crypto exchange is currently battling bankruptcy, the overall crypto market cap has plunged as low as $763 billion from a peak of $2.5 trillion in May 2021.

Like many users across the world, Indian users too chose the Bahamas-registered crypto exchange's services and are likely to lose their investments on FTX.

Indian exchanges re-evaluate the battered market:

Noticing the current market, Indian exchanges such as CoinSwitch and CoinDCX are reevaluating the battered market and advocating for stronger policies and regulations.

The FTX crisis has also sparked discussion regarding a potential solution known as "proof of reserves"— a process of comparing on-chain assets held in reserve to off-chain liabilities. In other words, it helps users to audit digital asset reserves held by a custodian on demand.

On November 17, CoinSwitch announced an independent third-party report to confirm its overall holdings. Meanwhile, CoinDCX believes proof of reserves alone cannot provide complete transparency and is working on publishing the Reserves to Liabilities (R2L) Ratio periodically along with audit certificates.

CoinSwitch launches multi-exchange trading platform

Earlier this week, Indian crypto investment platform CoinSwitch, launched a multi-exchange trading platform, CoinSwitch Pro.

It will allow users to trade BTC (Bitcoin), ETH (Ethereum), USDT, Doge, MATIC, and other crypto assets in Indian rupees across many exchanges with a single login.

Trading across exchanges:

At present, CoinSwitchPro supports three Indian exchanges including CoinSwitch, CoinDCX and WazirX. Traders can trade across exchanges and manage investments in a unified portfolio.

By the end of 2023, the firm plans to launch its first non-crypto offering as part of its mission to ‘Make Money Equal for All.

 CoinDCX publishes Proof of Reserves

Earlier this week, Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX published a list of its on-chain and off-chain balances, as part of its Proof of Reserves report.

As per the balances on the Nansen dashboard, CoinDCX held over $129 million in crypto assets at the time of writing.

More on the report:

In its portfolio, CoinDCX holds over $68 million on Binance, through its spot trading and interest-earning services, the Indian exchange confirmed to The Decrypting Story.

Around $55.6 million is held in its own wallet, and around $5.8 million on Polygon staking pools and firm has stated that its crypto balances and complete list of wallet addresses are available for public viewing and verification.