WazirX has scheduled maintenance after the $234M hack, users are not happy

WazirX, the hacked Indian crypto exchange, announced a maintenance period to restore account balances and cancel specific trades. According to the announcement, services will be affected, adding, “Please note that all services will be unavailable during this period.”

According to a post on the X social platform from WazirX, this maintenance will take place between 6 p.m. on August 15 and 2 a.m. IST on August 16, during which all WazirX services will be temporarily inaccessible.

The indian crypto exchange was hacked on July 18, and the attackers left with more than  $234 million in crypto assets. Cyvers, a Web3 security firm, identified the breach after detecting many suspicious transactions originating from WazirX’s Safe Multisig Ethereum wallet.

The hack significantly affected the exchange, necessitating immediate action to secure the remaining assets and resolve the problem. As of now, WazirX is working to restore user trust and improve security measures.

Once the migration is complete, the crypto exchange plans to publish a list of all new wallets to continue decentralized finance transparency.

The exchange’s decision to carry out maintenance has been driven by the need to achieve a fair outcome for its users in the aftermath of the hack’s irregularities.

The exchange aims to reduce the financial impact on its users by restoring account balances and canceling trades completed after the withdrawal stoppage at 1 p.m. IST on July 18th.

Meanwhile, the hacker responsible for the $234 million breach has converted over $150 million worth of altcoins to Ether in order to avoid having the funds frozen or blacklisted.

WazirX questioned for fraud

The hacking has sparked a debate between WazirX and Liminal over who is responsible for the breach. While Liminal personnel have claimed that their platform was not affected, the exchange has maintained that flaws in Liminal’s interface caused the attack.

Liminal manufactured a report claiming that the exploit was caused by compromised WazirX machines.

WazirX said on August 14 that it is moving the remaining assets stored with Liminal to new multi-signature wallets. This step is critical to ensuring the highest level of asset security.

A multisig wallet is a crypto wallet that requires several signatures to verify and perform transactions. WazirX’s multisig wallet contained six authorized signers: one from Liminal and five from the exchange.

Users have questioned the maintenance on X with one saying “Which services will be unavailable? Withdrawal and trading services? They are already unavailable from 1 month so what is new ? Return our whole fund with interest. It’s not your money.”

Another adds, “WazirX Team, what maintenance is left and what maintenance is left for you to do? Do you intend to run away from India? Anyway, you have troubled your Indian users a lot. If you stay in India, you will have to pay the funds. You should know this very well, if you run away from  India, then nothing can be done so till when will you be paying the users’ funds while staying in India? Tell us quickly.”