Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX has ended its NFT marketplace operations with immediate effect. Currently, the WazirX NFT website displays a message stating this. In a statement on its website, Wazir said the business "hasn't gained much traction" despite creating a "safe and secure" marketplace.
“NFTs are decentralized, and owners have complete control over their assets, which is why they have become so popular. Our users can rest assured that they can continue to hold their NFTs in their wallets, and these can be sold in other marketplaces such as OpenSea,” the statement clarified.
A report by Inc42 stated that there are 52,253 listings of WazirX NFTs on OpenSea. The news caused an uproar on social media. Several posts on Twitter point to "zero notification," which some have dubbed pulling the rug. One Twitter user complained that NFTs hosted on the platform are now unobtainable.
WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty responded with a tweet saying that shutting down the WazirX NFT marketplace was a pull. Just a day before WazirX shut down its marketplace, an NFT collection called Friends announced a similar decision to "pause" operations, citing market volatility. The announcement raised concerns about pull from the Friendsies community. The launch of the WazirX NFT marketplace in June 2021 was followed by several other India-focused NFT platforms from other companies. Some have been able to attract top movie stars to mint their NFTs, and the market seems to be taking off, especially with movie stars and cricketing personalities joining the NFT ranks. But a prolonged bear market and an unfriendly regulatory environment appear to have hit the cryptocurrency industry hard.
In its Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) forecast 2022, technology consultancy Deloitte said that the Indian sports and entertainment NFT market will grow to $1 billion in the near future, while global sports NFT trade will top $2 billion by 2022 . “India and Bollywood are home to more than 500 million cricket fans…India’s film and sports NFT market has the potential to exceed a billion-dollar value in the near future,” the Deloitte report said.
