TL;DR

Head over straight to this link and sign this petition and extend your support by sharing the petition over your social media accounts.

Thank you!

Hello friends!

Just minutes after yesterday noon, an Indian crypto exchange announced to shut its business and suspend all trading activity within next two hours. Not only that, it heavily hiked withdrawal fee for all of its coins. Imagine paying 1000 BTT or 6 Tether as withdrawal charges for a forced withdrawal!

But that's how crypto exchanges in India are making an exit. The leading crypto exchange Zebpay did the same when shutting down its business in India last year. Now it's the turn of Coindelta.

Thankfully a few crypto exchanges have come forward to compensate the heavy withdrawal fee for the customers of Coindelta if they choose to migrate their funds to them. However this is a good marketing opportunity for these exchanges but customers finally got some relief in it.

Here's an announcement by WazirX:

Another exchange Bittbns also saw this as an opportunity and came to the rescue of victims of Coindelta:

But is this enough? For how long we should expect competitors to clean up shit of scammers?

Crypto regulation will take its own ttime. But can we sit idle until then and just be an easy target of such crooked players?

What's the way out? Can we do something about this situation?

I thought and initiated a petition to frame stringent measures for self-regulation by the industry association.

I have never written any petition before and don't know how it should be. In case any of you can help to put it in a better way, please guide me on it.

Here is the link to the petition:

I'm also quoting its text body below:

It's almost a year when RBI banned all Crypto Exchanges from transacting with all scheduled banks. The measure was taken in an effort to protect Indian investors' interest. But a year later, we still don't have any policy or law in place to regulate blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.

Almost all crypto-exchanges in the country are struggling for volumes because of this uncertainty. The leading crypto-exchange Zebpay shut shop last year and moved out of the country to do its business. Recently, another crypto-exchange Coindelta shut its shop suspending all its markets w.e.f. 2:00 PM on March 30, 2019 citing no significant progress in the Supreme Court case related to RBI.

While it's their sole discretion to continue or discontinue their business but unfortunately Coindelta suddenly announced to suspend its Markets giving less than 2 hours notice to trade their crypto assets. In addition to it, it raised all withdrawal fee by 3 to 4 folds. The fee range from 6 USDT to 0.002 BTC per withdrawal. Zebpay had also exerted to a similar practice to make an exit from the market.

This being a forced withdrawal, it's highly unethical and scammy of Coindelta to charge a withdrawal fee at their whims. What if they charged 50% withdrawal fee or 100% withdrawal fee? Won't it be considered a big scam? Then why not several folds increase in fee is scam?

In current scenario, when Government isn't regulating this industry, it is the responsibility off the industry bodies to mandate a self-regulation.

Through this petition, we would like to request IAMAI's Blockchain Committee to consider enforcing the following terms (at the least) on all crypto industry members:

(a) Blacklist promoters of CoinDesk & Zebpay from Membership of IAMAI for life. All defaulting businesses should be treated similarly.

(b) Beside membership fee, maintain a small deposit (something like Cash Reserve Ratio by RBI) that can be forfeited in the event of any violation of business ethics and working against the interest of community. This fee should be applicable to all custodian account providers including crypto exchanges and financial service providers like Nexo, Celsius, Salt etc.

(c) Co-ordinate with similar organizations and industry bodies across the globe to discourage operation or establishment of any business by the promoters who default in India.

(d) Exert all possible methods to compel these defaulters to abide by business ethics. E.g. try to freeze their accounts on chains like EOS by appealing to BPs or ECAF etc.

Paradoxically, Coindelta team has stated:
"Having strong beliefs in the cryptocurrency space, we will remain persistent in adding values to the industry and continue walking on our journey of bringing India closer to Blockchain"

Industry association should decide whether such a team can actually contribute any value or they are going to further erode the value by crushing and milking the vulnerable crypto community of India.

Although a few exchanges have come forward to offer a discount equivalent to the withdrawal fee levied on customers by Coindelta, why should someone else clean up the shit of others? Why set such a precedent?

In past, even Coindelta offered to lure customers of Zebpay by a similar offer when Zebpay shut its shop last year. So, we can never be sure if the exchanges making such an offer at present will not hike their withdrawal fee similarly if and when they decide to shut their business. Customers should be free to join any exchange according to their own discretion and shouldn't be compelled to join some chosen ones based on these offers.

Coindelta & Zebpay are responsible for creating such a mess in this industry. Stringent measures and actions are required to deter further exit scams in Indian crypto industry.

Please sign this petition and extend your support by sharing the petition over your social media accounts too.

Thank you!