WazirX founder Nischal Shetty said the platform is regaining its original strength after a long pause. Between July and September this year, active traders on the spot platform increased by 111 per cent. The exchange also saw a 124 per cent rise in spot volume as many old users returned.
How have users responded to your restructuring efforts over the year?
The last 12 months have been about rebuilding. For 18 months, the platform was on pause due to the restructuring, and there was no way for us to know what was in store after the restart. We’ve been the biggest exchange before, and we wanted to get back on that path. We now have the best in the industry customer satisfaction score whenever someone reaches out to our support team. It’s 90 per cent plus now. When we launched, it was, in the low 60 per cent range.
WazirX Zero helped us attract our trading audience. People are coming back and starting to trade. From July to September this year, traders on our spot platform have increased by 100-111 per cent, and our volumes have increased by 124 per cent.
We launched WazirX Futures in April this year, and we’ve seen a rapid increase in volume. Our futures volume is now far greater than our spot volume. We’ve also been increasing our deposits. We’ll probably soon cross over to the positive range.
Would you say you are reaching your original strength?
We’re regaining right now. The ratio between deposits and withdrawals is almost on par with what it was before the restart. The numbers will differ because that depends on the market conditions, and we obviously have a lot more customers to bring back to the platform. So, that’s still a journey. What we’re seeing is that our withdrawals and deposits are a reflection of market sentiment. When we restarted, it reflected our platform sentiment. That’s been one of the other major indicators that we’re going in the right direction.
What’s your current user mix?
As many as 94.4 per cent of traders since the restart were returning pre-shutdown customers, and there was a 69.4 per cent growth in first-time INR depositors. There was a 52.5 per cent increase in monthly first-time traders between November and September, and around 51 per cent of first-time traders traded again within 90 days. Further, there was an 88.1 per cent increase in individual deposit transactions, a 111 per cent increase in active traders (July to September) and a 124 per cent increase in spot volume (June to September).
Considering the geopolitical environment right now, how do you see investor sentiment on buying and selling?
The first half of this year was more bearish. There was a lot of fear amongst people, especially because of geopolitics and AI. A lot of capital started moving into AI, even from the funds that were investing in crypto. Venture capitalists investing in crypto start-ups went towards AI. Now, we are seeing that at least the last couple of months have been on an upward trend. Things have started improving. Some of the capital going towards AI is coming back and Bitcoin is also on an upward trend.
How has the compliance updation in India contributed to this confidence?
If you look back 1-2 years ago, people were confused about filing their taxes the right way. Now we absolutely don’t see that at all because there’s full clarity. It’s not in the best position because you don’t want to have a no-loss set-off policy. You need to be able to set off your losses. So that’s something that should be improved.
Going forward, what are you hoping for? Do you want to maintain the status quo for a while to regain the trust or are you regaining your self-confidence in terms of growing the business?
We want to be number one again. That’s our objective because if we’re able to grow like this, we’ll be able to generate profits and distribute them to our creditors who’ve been impacted. We want to give our customers money back. We’re still in a better position, although we do have the baggage of the cyber attack. We think of it as being reborn again.