Crypto Cyberattack: Industry Players Slam WazirX's Business-First Approach From lack of ownership in assets lost to playing the blame game, WazirX is at the receiving end of heavy criticism

Two weeks after approximately 45 per cent of WazirX's crypto assets were affected by a cyber attack, fellow industry players are speaking up about the business-first approach taken to tackle the situation.

Taking to LinkedIn, Mudrex founder Edul Patel shared his views on the initiatives, "The way WazirX has been responding to the crisis is not appreciated."

On July 21, WazirX announced a bounty program for retrieving the siphoned amount. of USD 230m. Notably, it seeked help from white hat hackers, blockchain forensics experts, and cybersecurity professionals to recover the assets.

Patel pointed out four points. Despite being aware about the hack, WazirX allowed trading to continue for three days, "They should have immediately halted the platform, stopping trading, new sign-ups, and withdrawals. This decision not only compromised user security but also eroded trust."

He pointed out the blame game between WaxirX and Liminal and the complete lack of cooperation between the two. "What both the parties should have done is instead of preemptively sharing things, they should have discussed, got forensic reports and then shared a joint report," he shared.

The two proposed solutions, while they welcomed community feedback, ultimately favored the platform over the users. The solutions lacked a clear plan of action and did not provide any clarity on how the platform would take responsibility for returning users' money. "As a fiduciary entity, WazirX should take this responsibility seriously and provide transparent and user-centric solutions," he added.

After the solutions were criticized, WazirX withdrew strategies and asked for feedback and suggestions, it should have been the first step, not a reactive measure.

CoinDCX co-founder Sumit Gupta also spoke about how the way Nischal Shetty and the team were handling the situation wasn't community-first. Echoing Patel's point of taking ownership of the loss of user money, he said that the first contribution to loss should come from the company and the treasury and assets. "I have not seen any such commitment around this from the company side, instead making customers directly absorb the 45% losses is utter nonsense. The poll options are also framed in a manner to protect the business first and not the customers," Gupta posted on X.

Recently, it was reported that WazirX has sought Binance's help for bailing out customers affected. At the time of the hack, Binance had WRX tokens worth around USD 80 million.