Crypto exchanges hunker down as everything goes wrong in India

India’s largest digital assets exchanges are bracing for a drawn-out crypto winter — one with some unwelcome local twists.

With token prices plummeting, customers unable to transfer money to their accounts and a dreaded transaction tax on cryptocurrencies just around the corner, exchanges like Binance-backed WazirX have put expansion plans on the back burner.

“We have cut down all our non-critical costs,” said Rajagopalan Menon, WazirX’s vice president. “We are hiring only critical hires, we aren’t spending money at all. It’s literally crypto winter here,” he said, using industry jargon for an extended bear market.

WazirX isn’t alone. Rival exchanges Unocoin and BuyUcoin are also responding to vanishing trading volumes in a market that just last year ranked second in the world for crypto adoption.