WazirX announces $23 mn bounty to recover $234 mn lost in cyber breach

NEW DELHI — Crypto platform WazirX, which lost a staggering $234 million worth of digital assets in a cyber breach, on Sunday announced $23 million in bounty to recover the stolen funds. 

The company invited white hat hackers, blockchain forensics experts, and cybersecurity professionals from around the world to join the recovery mission.

WazirX said it offers a reward equivalent to 10 per cent of the recovered amount, subject to successful recovery and verification. “This could potentially amount to $23 million, making it one of the largest bounties ever offered in the crypto industry,” said the crypto platform.

“Our foremost goal is to recover the stolen funds. This bounty programme is designed to tap into the expertise of the community to achieve this critical objective,” said Nischal Shetty, Founder, WazirX.

The bounty programme will be active for three months.

The cyber attack, which occurred on July 18, resulted in $234 million being stolen from the WazirX multisig Ethereum Wallet.

Last December, the crypto exchange WazirX saw its trading volume nosedive to $1 billion in 2023 — a massive 90 per cent drop from 2022 — amid regulatory pressure from the government and a heavy crypto tax regime. In 2022, the Indian government introduced a 30 per cent tax on virtual currencies and a 1 per cent deduction for every crypto transaction. In the same year, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigated several cases under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) related to cryptocurrencies.