CoinDCX, India’s largest crypto exchange, has confirmed that it lost about $16 million. In a blog update published on Sunday, October 25, 2026, the exchange said the money was taken from old deposit wallets it had stopped using after a hack in 2025. Only a few days earlier, its CEO had called the first reports of a breach “a false alarm”.
Key facts
- About 15.99 million USDT (roughly $16 million) and a small amount of TRX left CoinDCX wallets on the Tron network on Tuesday, October 20.
- The largest single transfer was about 15.8 million USDT. All the funds went to one address and were then split up, with part of them sent on to deposit addresses at other big exchanges.
- CoinDCX says the problem was in its “old, deprecated” wallet setup. An automated service that moves deposits between its wallets failed for a while, so new deposits piled up at an address the exchange no longer used.
- The exchange says the loss “was absorbed by the company” and that user funds are safe in separate cold wallets. Trading, deposits and withdrawals kept running normally.
From denial to confirmation
- On-chain investigators flagged the outflows early on Wednesday, October 21.
- CEO Sumit Gupta first said on X that the exchange’s wallets “are not breached” and that the reports sounded like a false alarm. The company called the claims “misleading”.
- Investigator ZachXBT pushed back. He said one of the “retired” addresses had still been used to collect user deposits as recently as April and May 2026.
- Later the same day, CoinDCX admitted “operational losses” without giving a number. The full $16 million figure only came in Sunday’s blog post.
Not the first time
- In July 2025, CoinDCX lost about $44 million in a hack. Police later said attackers posing as recruiters had tricked an employee into installing malware on a work laptop.
- In October 2025, Coinbase invested in CoinDCX at a valuation of about $2.45 billion.
Why it matters
CoinDCX is the biggest exchange in India, one of the world’s largest crypto markets. The exchange says no customer lost money, which is the most important point for its users. But this is its second large loss in about 15 months, and the first answer it gave turned out to be wrong. A slow, changing story makes it harder for users to trust what an exchange tells them after an incident. It is also a reminder that old wallets an exchange no longer watches can still be a weak spot.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice.
