WazirX is the Indian crypto exchange that lost about $235 million in a July 2024 hack. Next month it will put its brand on two Mumbai crypto conferences held five days apart. The users it still owes hold Recovery Tokens they cannot sell, withdraw, or redeem, and no buyback of those tokens has been publicly reported since they were issued in January 2026.
One of the events taking place in Mumbai is India Blockchain Week (IBW), a conference hosted by the Web3 venture capital firm Hashed Emergent. On October 16, it announced WazirX as a Bronze Sponsor of its 2026 edition. The conference runs on November 1 and 2, 2026, at the Fairmont Mumbai. The official sponsor list places WazirX in the Bronze tier, and the announcement promoted the exchange as serving more than 1.5 crore (15 million) users.
But IBW is not the only booking. Aeternum, the organizer of Unchained Summit India, said in an October 8, 2026 press release that WazirX is one of four Silver Sponsors of that summit. It runs on November 5 and 6 at the Courtyard by Marriott Mumbai International Airport. WazirX Vice President Rajagopal Menon is a listed speaker at IBW 2026 and is also named in the Unchained Summit speaker lineup.
What WazirX Still Owes Its Users
The losses began on July 18, 2024. That day, attackers drained about $235 million from a multi-signature wallet run with custody provider Liminal. A multi-signature wallet is one that needs several approvals before funds can move. The United States, Japan, and South Korea later attributed the attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. Crypto withdrawals then stayed frozen for 463 days.
WazirX’s Singapore entity, Zettai Pte Ltd, proposed a Scheme of Arrangement to repay users. This is a court-supervised plan that restructures what a company owes its creditors. In an August 2025 re-vote, 95.7% of voting creditors by number and 94.6% by claim value backed the plan. The Singapore High Court sanctioned it on October 13, 2025.
The platform restarted on October 24, 2025. Within 10 business days, it distributed approximately 85% of Rebalanced Net Liquid Platform Assets to eligible users. The remaining portion of each approved claim was converted into Recovery Tokens (RTs), which were credited to users on January 9, 2026.
Under the scheme, recoveries are evaluated in recurring three-month periods. WazirX uses part of the value to buy back RTs only if it realises at least $10 million in a cycle. Anything below that rolls into the next period. The same disclosure puts total claims at $546 million as of 1:00 PM Indian Standard Time (IST) on July 18, 2024, with 1 billion RTs distributed among creditors in proportion to their claims.
The Buyback Clock Nobody Has Read Out
The tokens were issued on January 9. By a simple calendar reading, at least two full three-month evaluation windows have closed since then. WazirX has not said publicly whether either one cleared the $10 million threshold.
In May 2026, The Crypto Times reported that no Recovery Token buyback had been publicly reported. Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nischal Shetty then held a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on August 31, 2026. It did not change that position. Shetty said the tokens have no market price and that a listing is not on the immediate plan. He also said futures trading is still too early to generate the profit needed to move the recovery pool meaningfully. He gave no figure for any completed evaluation cycle.
Shetty has acknowledged the size of the gap himself. In a public interview, he said making token holders whole would require about $235 million in revenue over three years. He added that “$235 million is not loose change.” As of March 2026, only about $3 million of the stolen funds had been frozen.
A separate problem sits outside the scheme. Under a law-enforcement process in India, 34% of older Indian Rupee (INR) balances remain frozen. WazirX’s own help page describes the release date as unclear.
Product Launches Have Moved Faster Than Payouts
The exchange has not been idle since its restart. In November 2025, it launched WazirX ZERO, a ₹99-a-month subscription plus 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST). By December 2025, users were reporting auto-enrollment charges, including on accounts that had barely traded.
In March 2026, WazirX added perpetual futures with up to 20x leverage. In May 2026, it promoted INR-settled futures with 0.02% maker fees and said profits from that product would go toward additional recoveries for RT holders. On August 24, 2026, it launched WazirX AI, a trading assistant, together with a $100,000 simulated paper-trading sandbox. Earlier, on January 27, 2026, it announced a Fireblocks custody integration, alongside custody provider BitGo.
Promotions have run in parallel. These include a 52.9 million SHM “Highest Trader Kaun” contest funded with Shardeum-sponsored prizes. The title roughly translates as “Who is the highest trader.”
None of these launches came with a public figure showing how much revenue has flowed into the buyback pool. The same is true of the conference sponsorships. WazirX has not disclosed what its Bronze slot at IBW or its Silver slot at Unchained Summit cost. At the AMA, Shetty said quarterly reports exist. No profit and loss figures for the platform since October 24, 2025 were read out on the call.
The Founder’s Other Ventures Keep Appearing
Shetty also co-founded Shardeum, a Layer 1 blockchain with its own token, SHM. A Layer 1 blockchain is a base network rather than an app built on top of one. In March 2026, WazirX partnered with Sikka.fun, a token-creation app built on Shardeum. It offered 50,000 SHM to each of the first 1,000 users who linked their accounts. The Shardeum Foundation’s own airdrop page says it does not endorse or guarantee the partner’s products.
WazirX has not publicly disclosed how its commercial relationship with Shardeum is structured. It has also not said whether SHM-linked activity on the exchange contributes to the RT buyback pool. The Crypto Times previously reported that Shetty transferred 100% of the shares of a WazirX-linked company to his wife weeks after the breach.
Users Have Objected Before, at the Same Event
Replies under IBW’s sponsor announcement on X included boycott calls and demands that WazirX settle outstanding claims before paying for event branding. The objection is not new for this conference. In November 2024, WazirX users campaigned against the presence of Pi42 at IBW 2024. Pi42 is a futures exchange Shetty co-launched in February 2024, and users argued its sponsorship sat badly with unpaid hack losses.
What WazirX Says
WazirX’s position is that the RT structure was approved by creditors and sanctioned by a court. In its view, operating profits are the route to funding future buybacks. At the August AMA, Shetty described the tokens’ function as distributing future profits among creditors. On that reading, brand spending that brings in traders could, in principle, speed up the surplus the scheme needs.
The counterpoint is that the case rests on numbers WazirX has not published: sponsorship spend, platform profit, and the outcome of each evaluation cycle.
The Crypto Times has always been trying to reach out to WazirX and Nischal Shetty for comments on various matters. Despite these repeated attempts, neither has responded to the claims and refrained from answering difficult questions around the controversies. This report will be updated if a response is received.
What to Watch
The next three-month evaluation result is the clearest test of whether the marketing push is producing the $10 million surplus the scheme depends on. IBW 2026 opens on November 1, and Unchained Summit India closes on November 6. Within that window, WazirX will be on stage twice in Mumbai, and token holders are likely to ask the same questions at both venues.
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