CoinDCX Insider Nabbed in $44M Crypto Heist—DeFi’s Trust Problem Strikes Again
Another day, another crypto exploit—only this time, the attacker had a company badge.
Indian exchange CoinDCX just confirmed police arrested an employee tied to a $44 million security breach. The insider allegedly bypassed protocols in what looks like a carefully orchestrated drain.
DeFi’s dirty little secret? The biggest vulnerabilities often wear suits. While the team promises ‘enhanced safeguards,’ the irony isn’t lost—centralized exchanges keep preaching decentralization while failing at basic operational security.
One cynical take? The employee just executed the ultimate ‘exit liquidity’ strategy. The arrest proves blockchain’s transparency works… just not fast enough to stop the theft.
Freelance gig or inside job?
CoinDCX’s internal probe revealed that Rahul’s company laptop had been compromised. The suspect claimed that he was unaware of the breach and insisted he was a victim himself. However, he admitted to taking freelance gigs from unknown third parties via WhatsApp calls and foreign numbers, which eventually raised serious red flags.
Police reportedly found ₹15 lakh ($17,000) deposited into Rahul’s account from unknown sources. One of the files he received from these “clients” may have been a Trojan that gave hackers access to CoinDCX systems. He was detained on July 26, and investigations are in full swing now.
The massive hack came to light when the on-chain sleuth ZachXBT flagged a breach at CoinDCX.
Later, the platform’s CEO, Sumit Gupta, confirmed the incident. ZachXBT, in a post, highlighted that a CoinDCX team member was telling people to engage with Sumit’s post to appreciate the platform’s transparency. Meanwhile, the CoinDCX team waited for 17 hours to disclose the breach, and that came after the sleuth alerted the public about the incident.
Reacting to the arrest, ZachXBT stated “why are people so negligent?”
He also wrote, “is a software engineer, yet opens random files sent to him on a company laptop.”
CoinDCX blames sophisticated attackers
CoinDCX CEO, in a fresh post, mentioned that some media reports have surfaced referencing the FIR the platform filed with the Karnataka Police regarding the security incident that impacted the platform. However, as the investigation is ongoing, they cannot engage with the media or public on the issue.
He added that the breach appears to be the result of a “sophisticated social engineering attack”, with the attackers targeting employees to compromise internal systems. They claim that the company is fully cooperating with law enforcement.
Some media reports have surfaced referencing the FIR we filed with the Karnataka Police regarding the security incident that impacted our platform.
As this is an ongoing investigation, we unfortunately cannot engage with the media or public on this issue. We want to ensure the…
— Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX) (@smtgpt) July 31, 2025
The platform has launched a “Recovery Bounty Programme” offering 25% of any retrieved funds to anyone who can help. That’s a cool $11 million in bounty, one of the largest ever seen in India’s crypto space.
On the market side, the global crypto market cap surged marginally over the last day to stand at $3.89 trillion. Bitcoin price is up by 30% in the last 30 days, hovering above the $118k zone. Ethereum added 57% of gains in the same period. ETH is trading at an average price of $3,857.
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