TheBlock
CoinDCX confirmed it lost 15.99 million USDT, roughly $16 million, to an attack on deposit wallets it had retired after its July 2025 hack. The disclosure, posted to the exchange's blog early Sunday, reverses a public denial from co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta, who days earlier called reports of the breach "a false alarm." The exchange said its automated sweeping service had failed for a period, leaving user deposits pooled at an unused address carrying unknown vulnerabilities.
Why it matters
Onchain analyst ZachXBT flagged the outflows Wednesday, tracing 15.99 million USDT and 5,783.81 TRX from a CoinDCX hot wallet and deposit addresses to a single Tron address, from where the funds were routed to Binance, OKX and Gate. Gupta replied within three hours that CoinDCX wallets were "not breached," and the exchange's official account called the claims "misleading." ZachXBT pushed back, showing one deposit address stayed in use for 10 months after the 2025 incident and swept funds to CoinDCX's current hot wallet as recently as April and May 2026, leaving $15.8M in user deposits unaccounted for by the team.
Trust is the scarcer asset here. The July 2025 hack already cost CoinDCX about $44 million, which Bengaluru police traced to hackers posing as recruiters who tricked a software engineer into installing malware on a company laptop. The exchange has now admitted it publicly denied a live theft before confirming it.
Market impact
CoinDCX says user funds remain safe in segregated cold wallets with multi-layer custody, that trading, deposits and withdrawals continue normally, and that the $16M loss was absorbed by the company. But ZachXBT has advised users to withdraw all funds, accusing the co-founders of lying or negligent incompetence, while still helping freeze six figures of stolen crypto for the exchange. Coinbase invested in CoinDCX in October 2025 at a $2.45 billion valuation, and India's largest regulated venue now faces a credibility test no balance sheet can cover. Watch Indian withdrawal volumes and whether the damage bleeds into sentiment across local venues.
Frequently asked questions
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How much did CoinDCX lose in the latest breach?
15.99 million USDT, roughly $16 million, was taken from retired deposit wallets the exchange had stopped using after its July 2025 hack. CoinDCX said it absorbed the loss.
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Are CoinDCX user funds safe after the $16M loss?
The exchange says all user funds remain in secure, segregated cold wallets protected by multi-layer custody and offline controls, and that trades, deposits and withdrawals continue as usual.
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Why did CoinDCX initially deny the breach?
CEO Sumit Gupta said the compromised addresses had been retired after the July 2025 hack and that hackers were reusing old wallets, calling it a false alarm. The company later confirmed its sweeping service had failed, leaving deposits on vulnerable old wallets.
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What role did ZachXBT play in the CoinDCX disclosure?
He flagged the suspicious outflows Wednesday, traced 15.99M USDT and 5,783.81 TRX to one Tron address and then to Binance, OKX and Gate, and later urged users to withdraw their funds.
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What was the impact of CoinDCX's 2025 hack?
The July 2025 incident cost the exchange about $44 million. Bengaluru police said hackers posed as recruiters to trick a software engineer into installing malware on a company laptop.
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