SHIB Dips Hard During Top Indian Exchange’s $230M Hack

• Top Indian platform WazirX gets hacked by North Korean cybercriminals.
• SHIB gets entangled in a massive dump as hackers swap SHIB for ETH.
• Shiba Inu slightly rebounds post-incident, hovering below key support.

Indian exchange WazirX suffered a massive drainage on July 18, 2024, due to a security breach on one of the platform’s multi-sig hot wallets. On-chain sleuth ZachXBT reported that Shiba Inu (SHIB) was among the digital assets that took a huge hit during the incident.

SHIB Slips After Suspicious 3.63T Move

In a hacking incident that has slimmed WazirX’s reserve by $230 million, Shiba Inu’s gargantuan transfer of 3.63T has immediately raised eyebrows. Carried out half an hour past midnight UTC time on July 18, 2024, the massive transfer was followed by SHIB’s plunge from $0.00001872 to $0.00001749 in two hours.

This sudden SHIB price dip sent tongues wagging among crypto aficionados in X, especially as SHIB’s lead dev, Shytoshi Kusama, was planning to visit Mumbai after last week’s start-up conference in Japan. As SHIB remains one of the most demanded cryptocurrencies in India, the full damage from WazirX’s security breach is yet to be determined.

WazirX Hacker Dumps SHIB for Ethereum

In the ongoing investigation by Zach XBT, the on-chain sleuth confirmed that hackers have used Tornado Cash, a popular crypto mixer that makes the funds untraceable, to cash out a large chunk of the funds. Because of this, North Korea’s Lazarus Group is mulled as the main suspect.

Furthermore, blockchain intelligence platform Spot On Chain tracked the identified cybercriminal’s wallet, only to find out that a whopping 5.43T SHIB tokens were dumped, totaling $90.2 million. Additionally, the fraudsters withdrew 20.5M Polygon (MATIC) coins, worth $10.2 million.

The hackers dumped 640.27B PEPE tokens for $7.48M, collecting 43.77 Ether (ETH) from altcoin dumps, while another 15,298 ETH was directly stolen from the popular Indian exchange. As of press time, SHIB is changing hands at $0.00001759, managing to recoup a tiny percentage of market value dropped on July 18, 2024.

On the Flipside

• While the gigantic 5.43T Shiba Inu coin dump applied momentary sell pressure for SHIB, it didn’t materialize into panic among retail crypto investors.
• According to the combined order book on Spot, SHIB’s executed bids rose by 98.85% after WazirX’s hack, which resulted in $9.95M in SHIB buys over 24 hours.

Why This Matters

Crypto hacks have been an intensifying issue in the sector, with damages totaling $1.38 billion in 2024.

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