2025-04-08T07:59:07.000Z

In a significant development for the victims of a massive $230 million hack that hit the crypto exchange WazirX in July 2024, the platform has successfully garnered over 93% approval from its creditors for a proposed Scheme of Arrangement. This vote is a critical step towards facilitating a partial recovery of lost assets for the affected users.

The voting took place on the Kroll Issuer Services platform and ran from March 19 to March 28, attracting participation from more than 141,000 creditors who collectively represent claims totaling $195.65 million. Among these, a substantial majority—131,659 creditors holding claims worth $184.99 million—cast their votes in favor of the scheme. This strong show of support translates to approximately 93.1% by number of votes and an impressive 94.6% by the monetary value of the claims, significantly surpassing the stipulations set out by Singapore’s Companies Act. This legal framework, under which WazirX’s parent company Zettai operates, requires a simple majority by count alongside a minimum of 75% by value for such proposals to be accepted.

The stakes were particularly high, as failure to secure approval for this scheme would have led the company to pivot towards liquidation under Singapore’s Companies Act. Liquidation would have likely resulted in a much lower recovery rate for creditors, with estimates indicating that those affected might not see any return until as late as 2030, as WazirX had indicated earlier in February.

Now, with the favorable voting results in hand, Zettai is gearing up to seek court approval from the Singapore judiciary for the scheme. Should the court grant its sanction, the plan will initiate an initial payout to creditors within just 10 business days. Following this, there will be a gradual resumption of both withdrawals and trading activities, contingent upon meeting regulatory compliance standards.

In addition, the recovery strategy includes innovative measures such as the launch of a decentralized exchange (DEX) and the issuance of recovery tokens. These tokens will be tradable and a periodic buyback will be conducted using profits generated by the platform and other new revenue streams, further enhancing the recovery process.

The backdrop to this recovery effort is a harrowing cyber incident involving the notorious Lazarus Group, which led to the theft of over $230 million. The breach was reportedly facilitated by the interception of a private key, a situation that WazirX attributed to vulnerabilities in its custody provider, Liminal. In contrast, Liminal rebuffed these claims, suggesting that the security shortcomings lay with WazirX itself.

The aftermath of the hack saw the perpetrator laundering the stolen funds through various channels, using services like Tornado Cash to hide the tracks of the illicit transactions. As reported by CoinDesk in September, this criminal maneuver severely dampened hopes for a complete recovery of the stolen assets. In light of these challenges, WazirX has been diligently working towards recovering the lost funds, although it has met with limited success thus far.