According to an X post from Shetty, the bounty program was launched earlier today. WazirX had initially proposed a $11.5m total bounty for recovering the assets, but the co-founder later said it was updated to $23m after the intercession of crypto security sleuth ZachXBT.
Shetty said the bounty program was a way for the exchange to get assistance from the crypto community in its quest to recover the money stolen in the July 18 cyberattack. The first is a track and freeze bounty, aimed at helping locate and freeze the stolen assets.
The second is a white hat recovery bounty, offering a reward of 10% of the recovered amount to those who assist in retrieving the funds. The exchange has publicly shared an ERC20 wallet address for the return of the stolen funds as can be seen below.
Plenty of guesses have leaned towards the Lazarus Group’s involvement. Although the exchange is optimistic some of the funds can be recovered, blockchain analytics firm Arkham confirmed the hacker sold $102m worth of SHIB, which was part of the funds stolen.
WazirX co-founder said the exchange is now awaiting Liminal’s detailed report on the incident, as well as forensic analysis of the three WazirX devices involved.