Chances of recovery slim, but treasury remains strong: CoinDCX Open House discussion

Neeraj Khandelwal, Co-founder, CoinDCX

Cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX said it was doubtful of recovering the $44 million loss incurred by the company following the cyber attack last weekend, but remained optimistic about the business with a robust treasury.

During an Open House discussion, Neeraj Khandelwal, Co-founder of CoinDCX, said that he is unsure about recovering the amount stolen but either way, the company is not dependent on it.

“As a group, on an annualised basis we make ₹1,100 crore of revenue. Our balance sheet is extremely healthy and our treasury is more than enough to continue to run the business into perpetuity. In India, as a business, we are profitable. There is no need to raise capital even though investors remain supportive,” said Rohit Jain, Chief Strategy and Investment Officer and MD of CoinDCX Ventures, adding that 25 per cent of recovery has already been allocated to the investor community, as per the latest bounty programme.

5 lakh withdrawals pending

Stating that 10,000 people have already received crypto withdrawals, the company said that the remaining 5 lakh withdrawal requests will also be processed by Monday night. Mridul Gupta, Founding Partner at CoinDCX, explained that the weekend and distribution of funds across banks caused the delay.

“Crypto withdrawals in India are risky. We’re trying to make sure all customers are protected. So, we’re deliberately slow,” he said.

Operational funds on cold wallets

The company will be moving its operational funds to cold wallets that are kept offline to ensure security. Addressing concerns around possible breach of cold wallets, the founder said that such wallets are kept separate from the rest of the infrastructure, servers.

“Any hacking done is usually on servers and cold wallets are offline behind protocols. Multiple partners need to come together to move cold wallets. We have been working since a quarter now to move operational funds to cold wallets,” said Khandelwal, and encouraged more users to opt for cold wallet as a security measure.

Delay due to risk measures

Over the weekend, the company was repeatedly questioned about the 17-hour delay in confirming the security breach. CoinDCX said it had acted as per advisories that called for an initial investigation to avoid panic. The company said it had notified investors, stakeholders partners, investigative agencies on detecting the breach.

“We want to go back to customers with the full information and the advisory instructed to wait. Whatever we felt customer needs to know, we pushed it out,” said Gupta, adding that all features and markets of the platform will be functional by Tuesday.

The company said it is not focused on identifying and convicting the attackers and is working with global security forensic teams on affected infrastructure.

Roshan Aslam, the co- founder & CEO of GoSats, said that while security breaches are common, they are largely dealt with by companies who set up adequate measures for the same.

“Attacks are particularly high in smart contract-enabled chains like Ethereum, Solana with many malicious attempts targeting vulnerabilities, and exploiting them in the smart contract capabilities to access funds. A social engineering of employees is done sometimes to understand the security architecture, which is similar to what happened last year during the WazirX incident.”

Vikas Gupta, Country Manager for Bybit India, also emphasised that such security lapses in the crypto industry serve as a warning to the whole sector and highlight how crucial a robust, comprehensive security procedure and constant industry cooperation is to safeguard users’ money.

“Users’ trust is dependent on the robustness and openness of the platforms they use, as digital assets continue to gain popularity globally. We believe these security incidents should prompt a collective industry response that emphasizes security innovations, shared intelligence, and stronger regulatory interaction. Strengthening the foundation of the crypto ecosystem is not a choice, but necessary.”

Published on July 21, 2025