Hack January 18, 2024 Emptied 50% of Assets
Investigations by CERT-IN and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) report that hackers have stolen crypto assets valued at between 230 and 235 million dollars in the WazirX hot wallet on July 18, 2024. The attack on the theft against WazirX was also approximately half of the entire reserves, which paralyzed its operations and immediately froze withdrawals and trading. The decision enabled the company to escape bankruptcy and make repayments to the users on a managed plan. Coinpedia financial disclosures state that WazirX has already had 566.4 million $USDT of liquid assets and a verified user claim of 546.5 million, which means that over 100 covers it.
Staged Retailition and Zero-Fee Trading
The trading at WazirX will also restart in stages, with the initial ones being the trading of crypto-to-crypto pairs and the $USDT/INR market. To lure traders in again the exchange will provide zero trading fees in the first phase. WazirX has written on its official blog. This relaunch is based on security, transparency, and user trust. We have restructured our infrastructure to institutional levels. The company has collaborated with BitGo in the provision of custodial, which incorporates multi-signature wallet systems and sophisticated monitoring to avoid future exploits.
Industry and Regulatory Environment
WazirX is the best exchange in India before the 2024 hack, which facilitated more than 1 billion in trading volumes per month. Its shutdown caused a large market void, which was subsequently occupied by CoinSwitch and CoinDCX. The Bank of India (RBI) and the FIU have also increased the scrutiny of the exchanges after the hack, and have demanded greater KYC and custody audit. Analysts observe that the success with which WazirX implements its recovery token scheme will dictate the ability of the company to recover the two million Indian users that it previously served.