Blockchain
Indian Crypto Exchange WazirX Hack Sends SHIB, WRX Crashing as Bitcoin, Tether Trade at Huge Discounts
Cryptocurrencies stolen in a malicious attack On Thursday morning, India’s WazirX exchange and the platform’s native token suffered significant losses in their market values after a cyber attack drained around 50% of the exchange’s reserves.
The exchange has temporarily suspended withdrawals.
WazirX’s WRX token is down 15% to just over 14 cents, according to Coingecko data. The rupee-denominated price has fallen more than 25% since the exchange confirmed the hack that saw the attacker walk away with $230 million in customer funds, including $100 million in shiba inus (SLAP)The attacker also drained $52 million in ether (ETH)$11 million in MATIC and $6 million in PEPE.
Since then, SHIB has lost more than 6% of its market value in US dollars, while it has dropped 16% in rupees, following reports that the hacker is liquidating the coins. Blockchain data suggests The striker is selling SHIB, putting downward pressure on his market value.
Other tokens have maintained some stability in dollar terms, while suffering significant losses in the exchange’s INR pairs.
Notably, the bitcoin-income rupee (BTC/INR) pair fell 11% to 5.1 million rupees ($60,945), trading at a huge discount to rival exchange CoinDCX, where the cryptocurrency changed hands at 5.7 million rupees. The average global dollar-denominated price of BTC rose 1% on the day to $61,800. The largest cryptocurrency by market value is trading at around $64,900, according to data from CoinDesk Indices.
Meanwhile, the USDT-INR (USDT) pair on WazirX dropped by 8%.
The discounts on BTC, USDT and other cryptocurrencies on WazirX likely reflect panic selling by investors and a rush into fiat/cash currencies following the cyber attack.