Days after unknown hackers breached the WazirX crypto exchange and stole $234 Million amounting to half of investors’ funds, the exchange founders announced a bounty program to recover the stolen assets.
On July 18, a massive security breach was reported in the multisig wallet of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which led to the theft of $234.9 Million worth of assets. Following the hack, WazirX halted all withdrawals from their platform and informed users that they have approached police for investigation.
On Saturday, Nischal Shetty, co-founder of WazirX, took to X to announce a “bounty program” to recover the stolen assets from their platform amounting to $234.9 Million.
“We’re preparing a bounty program to help us freeze/recover the stolen assets. Further discussions on continuous tracing of fund movements, we’re in touch with a few teams that claim to be experts at this. We’ve informed all the other exchanges. Some have responded, some have yet to. We are following up. Their support in recovery will be crucial as the stolen funds move. We are also analysing data to understand the extent of damage and working on further law enforcement and regulatory procedures,” claimed Shetty in his X post.
WazirX Team is actively working on next steps.
1. We’re preparing a bounty program to help us freeze/recover the stolen assets
2. Further discussions on continuous tracing of fund movements, we’re in touch with a few teams that claim to be experts at this.
3. We’ve informed all…— Nischal (Shardeum) 🔼 (@NischalShetty) July 20, 2024
Shetty also called for a unified support from the crypto ecosystem worldwide and that of India against this “unprecedented cyber attack” on their platform.“If as an ecosystem we come together, we can find a solution which will help us keep the ethos of Web3 communities alive and bring hope for future participants of this ecosystem,” said Shetty.
On July 18, as the hacking attempt on WazirX was reported worldwide, an initial bounty was also announced by Arkham Intel on Twitter after which crypto sleuth ZachXBT claimed to have identified a KYC centralized exchange deposit linked to the hack. Concurrently, Elliptic, a blockchain analytics firm, has implicated North Korean hackers Lazurus Group in the incident.
Also Read: With WazirX in Limbo, What is India’s Next Top Crypto Exchange?