CoinDCX CEO Addresses $44M Hack Incident

In a recent cybersecurity incident, Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX experienced a breach, resulting in a loss of approximately $44 million. The hack, identified early Saturday morning and reported by blockchain investigator ZachXBT, involved the compromise of a liquidity provisioning account on a partner exchange. According to Gupta, the affected wallet was funded with ETH from Tornado Cash, which was then partially bridged from Solana to Ethereum. Gupta confirmed the breach via a post on X, attributing the attack to a 'sophisticated server breach.' However, he assured that no customer funds were compromised and stated that CoinDCX would absorb the loss using its treasury reserves. The exchange is actively collaborating with its partner to block and recover the stolen assets and plans to introduce a bug bounty program soon. Gupta emphasized that the wallets storing customer assets remain secure. This incident follows a significant breach at another Indian exchange, WazirX, which lost $230 million a year prior, but it remains unclear whether North Korea's Lazarus Group, suspected in the WazirX attack, is involved in the CoinDCX case. CoinDCX, which became India's first crypto unicorn in 2021 after raising $90 million, has since expanded with a valuation that now stands at around $2.15 billion. The exchange has garnered criticism for its withdrawal policies, only allowing withdrawals upon a rigorous internal review. Gupta has asserted that such measures are in place to protect both the platform and its users. As of June, CoinDCX reported holdings valued at $584.2 million and approximately 20 million registered users. It maintains a compensation fund of about $7 million for potential breaches, demonstrating its commitment to user security and regulatory compliance.