WazirX was recently hacked and the subsequent loss of funds from a wallet managed by the cryptocurrency exchange has had a severe impact on the cryptocurrency sector in India. The embattled cryptocurrency exchange says it has been trying to identify and recover the stolen funds worth over $230 million (approximately Rs. 1,924 crore) over the past six days since the incident on July 18. However, it has been facing increasing criticism from users for not yet enabling withdrawal services for customers in the country.
a blog post Daily updates on this hack have provided insight into WazirX’s efforts to recover its funds. The webpage reveals that the exchange’s ability to maintain 1:1 collateral with assets has been severely compromised in the aftermath of the hack.
The exchange also stated that the WazirX bounty initiative has received 133 applications – this is significantly higher than the number of applications received a day after the bounty was set up. The initiative was announced earlier this week and offers rewards to the hackers who can help WazirX track down and freeze stolen funds. WazirX has also offered $23 million in White Hat bounty to the hacker if the stolen funds are returned.
The exchange also claims that it is working with law enforcement agencies and seeking assistance from others in the Web3 community to mitigate the impact of this hack.
The hacker — believed to be from North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group — managed to steal the funds via a total of 203 crypto assets. Ether, Tether, Pepecoin, Gala, Polygon and Shiba Inu were among the tokens stolen by the hacker, according to a list shared by WazirX with Gadgets360.
WazirX stated in its blog that “this incident has impacted the Ethereum multi-sig wallet, which consists of ETH and ERC20 tokens.”
On-chain analytics company QuillAudits claims more tokens stolen from the compromised wallet. These include LINK, SAND, APE, LDO, and USDC.
WazirX revealed his upcoming plans in a post on X (formerly Twitter) explanatory that as part of the recovery process it has reached out to projects that manage and control these stolen altcoins.
These projects have not yet released any information about their communications with WazirX or their participation in the relief efforts for the troubled exchange.
The exchange has reiterated that it is working to resume withdrawal, deposit and training services as soon as possible. However, no definitive date has been announced yet for when these services will be back online.
