On Thursday, July 18, 2024, India’s leading crypto exchange, WazirX, confirmed a major security breach resulting in a loss of over $230 million. The stolen tokens include a variety of cryptocurrencies such as $SHIB, $ETH, $MATIC, $PEPE, $USDT, and $GALA. Here is a breakdown of the estimated losses:
- 5.43 trillion $SHIB worth $102 million
- 15,298 $ETH worth $52.5 million
- 20.5 million $MATIC worth $11.24 million
- 640.27 billion $PEPE worth $7.6 million
- 5.79 million $USDT
- 135 million $GALA worth $3.5 million
In response to the breach, WazirX has temporarily suspended withdrawals of both Indian Rupees (INR) and cryptocurrencies to protect user funds while they investigate the incident.
According to data from Lookonchain, the hacker, operating under the wallet address “0x04b2,” has already started selling off the stolen assets, including 640.27 billion $PEPE worth $7.6 million and 35B $SHIB ($618K) and currently holds 5.4T $SHIB ($95.45M).
Arkham Intelligence Announced Bounty Program
To help track down the hacker, Arkham Intelligence has announced a bounty program called “New Intel Exchange Bounty: $235M WazirX Hack.”
This program offers rewards for:
- Identifying a Know Your Customer (KYC) centralized exchange deposit
- Revealing the identity of the hacker
- Successfully recovering the stolen funds
Meanwhile the first challenge of Identifying a Know Your Customer (KYC) centralized exchange deposit id is just solved by @ZachXBT, an blockchain investigator.
Stay tuned for more updates.