Wazirx Launches $23M Bounty Program to Recover Stolen Assets, Clarifies Attack Details

Wazirx, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange in India, has launched a bounty program to recover over $230 million in assets stolen in a recent cyberattack on one of its multisig wallets

Indian cryptocurrency exchange Wazirx has launched a bounty program to recover over $230 million in assets stolen in a recent cyberattack on one of its multisig wallets, the exchange announced Sunday.

Nischal Shetty, co-founder of Wazirx, highlighted the community's role in recovering the stolen assets, announcing on social media platform X: “We’ve launched a bounty program today to help track, freeze, and recover the stolen assets. We will need your help in spreading it across internationally.”

Initially, Wazirx announced an $11.5 million bounty, but in a follow-up post on X, Shetty revealed:

“The total bounty has been updated to $23M.”

Wazirx also shared details of the bounty program, inviting community participation in two key efforts. The “Track & Freeze” bounty offers rewards of up to $10,000 in USDT for actionable intelligence that leads to freezing the stolen funds.

Furthermore, the “White Hat Recovery” bounty promises ethical hackers a 5% incentive of the recovered amount.

“This bounty program will run for a period of three (3) months from the date of this announcement. However, the said time period may be amended, i.e., extended or reduced with or without notice to the participants based on requirements and results,” the crypto platform detailed.

In a different post on X, Shetty emphasized that the hack was not due to a phishing attack, stating: “The Wazirx hack was not due to a phishing link.”

He detailed that three signatures from Wazirx, each using different hardware wallets from different locations, were involved, adding that Liminal, the firm's custody provider, was the fourth signer. Shetty opined:

“We’re certain that hardware keys of any of the 3 Wazirx wallets were NOT compromised … Ultimately, for this attack, 4 different signatures from 4 different locations and two parties (Wazirx and Liminal) were needed.”

Liminal has maintained that its platform was not breached, insisting that its “comprehensive forensic analysis” shows the “malicious transactions” emerged from Wazirx's “compromised machines.”

Earlier, Wazirx revealed that it has filed a police complaint and is taking further legal action. Moreover, the crypto exchange reported the incident to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and contacted over 500 exchanges to block the identified addresses.

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