WazirX founder and chief executive Nischal Shetty sat for a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) on August 31, 2026, the first long community session of its kind since the exchange resumed trading in October 2025.
The recording ran for 1 hour and 8 minutes on YouTube, was hosted by a WazirX team member identified as Maria, and worked off questions pre-curated from Twitter and customer support. Follow-ups on the frozen rupee balances, court proceedings, proof of reserves, and Recovery Token (RT) buyback cycles did not make it to the stage.
The Clock Users Are On
The AMA arrived more than two years after the July 18, 2024 hack that drained about $235 million from a Liminal Custody multi-signature wallet, an attack later attributed by the United States, Japan and South Korea to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
The recovery has moved through a set of court-supervised milestones. On October 13, 2025, the Singapore High Court sanctioned the Zettai and WazirX scheme of arrangement, with about 95.7% of voting creditors by number and 94.6% by claim value backing the plan.
The platform restarted on October 24, 2025, and eligible users received the first distribution, roughly 85% of approved claims at reference-date values. Recovery Tokens for the remaining slice were credited to wallets on January 9, 2026, non-tradable, and reviewed every three months for buyback if at least $10 million in unencumbered value is realized in a cycle.
Shetty posted on X on August 26, 2026 that an AMA was coming “next week.” The session went live on 31 August. Clips circulating among users claimed the frozen 34% INR would be freed on September 14. That date did not come from WazirX. Shetty did not confirm it.
What Shetty Put on Record
On security, Shetty said the 2024 attack sat on third-party cold-wallet infrastructure and not on WazirX’s own stack. He said custody has since moved to BitGo and that Fireblocks is being integrated and would be live “very soon.” Internal code and infrastructure were tightened, he said, and third-party audits were carried out. WazirX’s own blog on January 27, 2026 had already announced a Fireblocks integration.
On the frozen 34% INR, he said the rupees exist in the bank and are frozen in a legal process. Shetty did not offer a timeline. He said a first email has gone to users with smaller balances, and that anyone who did not receive that email is in the larger category. He also said that if the case drags, operating profits may later be used to ease more accounts.
The WazirX help page currently states that the 34% freeze is tied to law-enforcement investigations on older balances, that new INR from October 22, 2025 onwards is fully usable, and that a release date is “unclear.” The AMA added a tranche story on top of that page. It did not add a court name, a next hearing date, or a rupee figure.
On INR spot liquidity, Nischal Shetty said the books are not where the exchange wants them. He attributed the thin liquidity to daily traders who moved away during the 15-month pause and to India’s 1% TDS regime. He pointed to WazirX ZERO and said liquidity would take time.
On Recovery Tokens, Shetty corrected the room during the call. He said the tokens are already issued and visible in the Funds tab, that they have no market price, and that listing is not on the immediate plan because spot volumes are not deep enough. Their function, he said, is to distribute future profits among creditors.
On futures, Shetty said volumes and user counts are rising month on month, fees remain among the lowest in the segment, and that the product is still too early to throw off the kind of profit that would meaningfully move the recovery pool. He also said very few users are setting take-profit and stop-loss orders, that many users are trading futures for the first time, and that he himself is not a natural futures trader.
On WazirX AI, launched on August 24, 2026 alongside a simulated $100,000 paper-trading sandbox, Shetty said the bot does not place an order without an approval tap, is free for now, has model-side costs, and that limits can be raised via support. He said research quality is the next build. He had not personally tested whether the product works properly in Hindi.
On the wider roadmap, staking did not make the current quarter. September is set aside for improving futures and AI, along with in-app compliance features such as source-of-deposit checks and additional documents. Fireblocks is intended to open further token rails, withdrawals first, and only for accounts that already have withdrawals. WRX, the utility token whose old fee-discount use case has faded with thin spot books, still has no new utility on the record.
Read: WazirX Token WRX Crashes 99% While Shardeum SHM Hits Rock Bottom
Cracks Inside the Hour
The session carried a set of characterisations that sat at some distance from published product terms and prior WazirX statements.
WazirX ZERO was described on the call as trading fees that are “completely zero.” The product page and support FAQs say something narrower: a ₹99-a-month plan plus 18% GST, auto-renewed first from INR, and then from crypto if the rupee balance is short, with an opt-out available. The ZERO plan drew user backlash in December 2025 over reports of auto-enrollment that users said pulled ₹99 from accounts with little or no recent trading.
The host initially treated Recovery Tokens as already addressed, then asked when they would be “released.” Shetty had to walk that back on air, restating that the tokens are issued but cannot be sold.
He said he did not know the exact futures minimum, placing it in the “500 to 1,000 rupees range.” He had not tested the Hindi path on the AI product he was promoting. Fireblocks was framed as both a completed security upgrade and an integration “still ongoing.” Paper trading, launched with the AI product in late August as a $100,000 sandbox, was described as something that might be sunset if usage stays low.
Time inside the room also slipped. The host thought a quarter-hour had passed when three-quarters of an hour had. She then closed out repeats of the 34% INR question so more chat items could be cleared.
The AMA also folded two distinct user problems into a single recovery story. The hack remainder is a Recovery Token claim under the Singapore scheme. The 34% INR freeze is a bank freeze tied to Indian law-enforcement investigations. The two legal paths are not the same.
What the AMA Left Off the Table
Several operational questions that have been open on the WazirX help page and in creditor forums since 2024 did not receive numbers on the call.
There was no figure for how much INR remains frozen, or in which banks. There was no case title, court, or next date. There was no cutoff explaining who received the first email, and no count of users or rupees in that tranche.
There was no statement on whether any three-month Recovery Token review since January 2026 has cleared the $10 million bar, or how much, if anything, has been used for buybacks. From January to the end of August, at least one three-month window had closed, and on a calendar reading, two. The scheme language is public. The cycle outcomes were not read out.
There was no profit and loss for futures or for the platform since October 24, 2025, even though Shetty mentioned that quarterly reports exist. There was no proof-of-reserves date, auditor, or BitGo and Fireblocks split, despite that being among the early comments under the YouTube upload. There was no update on how much of the stolen $235 million has been frozen or clawed back beyond earlier disclosures. There was no answer on how many users still cannot withdraw crypto at all. There was no WRX treasury or related-party holding figure. There was no explanation of how WazirX cash and Shardeum work stay ring-fenced when Recovery Token holders are told future profits are theirs.
Where Creditors Stand After the Call
Users who received the INR email were told their slice is already opening. Users who did not are in the longer line, with no month attached, and a suggestion that platform profits might one day substitute for a court order.
Recovery Token holders were reminded that the tokens sit in the Funds tab, that a listing is not near, and that futures is not yet the engine that was meant to give those tokens cash value.
For INR spot traders, the founder acknowledged that the book is still thin. For anyone hoping for staking, more chain withdrawals, or a date, the quarter has already been assigned to polishing futures and the chatbot.
The September 14 rumor that circulated ahead of the AMA did not survive the call. WazirX did not replace it with a date.
The Crypto Times has reached out to WazirX and founder Nischal Shetty for comment. This report will be updated if a response is received.
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