WazirX Redirected $74M in Crypto to Other Exchanges After Major Hack: CoinSwitch

Crypto Reporter

Shalini Nagarajan

Crypto Reporter

Shalini Nagarajan

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Shalini is a crypto reporter who provides in-depth reports on daily developments and regulatory shifts in the cryptocurrency sector.

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Last updated: 

October 21, 2024

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CoinSwitch CEO Ashish Singhal has claimed WazirX transferred about $73.6m in users’ crypto to global exchanges Bybit and KuCoin following its major $234m cyber attack in July.

Singhal leveled the accusation on Monday, as CoinSwitch introduced a public dashboard to track wallet activities after WazirX’s recent wallet disclosure. WazirX, the hacked exchange, recently filed an affidavit with the Singapore High Court. It revealed over 240,000 wallet addresses as part of its debt restructuring efforts.

Singhal tweeted that CoinSwitch holds fiat and crypto with WazirX, but the exchange “illegally” halted withdrawals. So, CoinSwitch used its own treasury to cover users’ funds.

CoinSwitch’s Legal Dispute with WazirX Highlights $9M in Trapped Assets

CoinSwitch began legal action against WazirX in July, revealing over $9m in trapped funds.

Singhal noted that the affected funds account for less than 1% of CoinSwitch’s total assets. Nevertheless, the company has developed a dashboard to closely examine the wallet addresses.

“Now, we are making that dashboard publicly available in the hope that it will be of some help to crypto investors at large,” he said.

“By scanning through these wallets, we have observed a large chunk of Wazirx crypto has been moved to exchanges such as Bybit and Kucoin post the incident,” Singhal added. “As of now, we have identified the movement of $ 72.13 mn worth of crypto to Bybit and $1.5 mn funds to Kucoin.”

WazirX CEO Justifies Transfer, Denies Trading Use Amid Custodian Delays

WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty acknowledged the fund transfer to other exchanges. But he clarified that the movement was not for trading purposes.

“Funds were moved to some exchanges because we are still in the process of onboarding a custodian,” he said on X. “This process is taking longer than expected, we need to be thorough in our assessment and carefully explore all options.”

Meanwhile, a WazirX spokesperson criticized CoinSwitch for launching a dashboard with WazirX’s wallet addresses, highlighting that CoinSwitch has yet to offer the same level of transparency about its own reserves.

“It shows how easy it is to build a dashboard but unfortunately [CoinSwitch Kuber] themselves haven’t built it for their customers who have been demanding for many years now,” the spokesperson told Cryptonews.

“So we would request CSK to first fix their own Proof of Reserves, make it real time and share all of their wallet addresses too along with a dashboard to make it easy for their customers. It’s time for everyone in the industry to move towards transparency and a real time POR is the best way forward.”