Key Takeaways
- Exchange stated all trades conducted after withdrawals were halted on July 18 will be reversed
- The restoration process will take place over the next few days, with affected users receiving email notifications about the impacted trades.
India-based crypto exchange WazirX is planning to restore the balances of all platform accounts following the staggering $235 million hack on July 18.
On August 8, the platform confirmed that all trades conducted after withdrawals were halted on July 18 will be reversed, ensuring user portfolios return to their pre-hack state.
The decision is part of WazirX’s efforts to provide an “equitable outcome for users” affected by the breach. The exchange stated, “All users will have their portfolio balances on the WazirX platform restored to what they were on July 18, 2024.” The restoration process will take place over the next few days, with affected users receiving email notifications about the impacted trades.
To ensure fairness, WazirX will cancel all trades made between July 18 and July 21, treating these transactions as if they never occurred. Any fees or referrals generated from these trades will also be reversed. Additionally, any fiat or cryptocurrency deposits made after July 18 will be addressed in a future update.
Around 45% of the users on the platform were impacted by the hack. Crypto storage provider Liminal Custody stated its preliminary probe show that one of the self-custody multi-sig smart contract wallets created outside of the Liminal ecosystem has been compromised resulting in the exploit. As per blockchain security firm Elliptic, North Korean hackers were likely behind the exploit.
WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty proposed a “socialized loss strategy”, seeking to distribute the impact across all users equitably. The exchange proposed a 55-45 approach for the remaining user funds, where 55% of user crypto assets would be made available for trading or withdrawals depending upon the option selected by the user.
However, the remaining 45% would be locked until WazirX could recover its stolen assets. However, this approach has faced significant backlash from customers.
