WazirX Prepares Bounty Program to Recover $230 Million Stolen in Security Breach
7/20/2024

WazirX co-founder Nischal Shetty has updated the public on the $230 million security breach affecting the Indian crypto exchange. The WazirX team is preparing a bounty program, engaging with expert teams to trace the stolen funds, and collaborating with other exchanges. “This is an unprecedented attack on one of the largest crypto exchanges in India. It has negatively affected the entire Web3 ecosystem,” said Shetty.
Wazirx Provides Update on $230 Million Security Breach

WazirX co-founder Nischal Shetty has provided an update on the WazirX security breach situation. He shared on social media platform X on Saturday: “WazirX Team is actively working on next steps,” he began, adding that firstly:

"We’re preparing a bounty program to help us freeze/recover the stolen assets."

Additionally, the WazirX team is engaging with “a few teams that claim to be experts” in the area to continuously trace the movement of the stolen funds. Communication has been made with other exchanges to seek their support in the recovery efforts, and some have already responded, Shetty detailed, adding that the WazirX team is also analyzing data to assess the damage and working on legal and regulatory measures.

“I’m providing steps as we take them. We want to ultimately address the impact to customer funds, but we need to first analyse all the data before we can plan next steps,” Shetty stressed, emphasizing:

"This is an unprecedented attack on one of the largest crypto exchanges in India. It has negatively affected the entire Web3 ecosystem."

WazirX reported a security breach on Friday involving one of its multisig wallets, resulting in the theft of over $230 million. The crypto exchange claimed that the wallet targeted in the cyberattack had been using Liminal’s digital asset custody and wallet infrastructure since February 2023. In response to the hack, WazirX has filed a police complaint and is taking additional legal actions. The exchange has notified the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), and is contacting over 500 other exchanges to block the identified addresses associated with the breach.