WazirX’s Shocking 20x Futures: The $230M Hack That Could Ruin You!

From $230M Hack to 20x Leverage: WazirX’s Risky New Bet

Key Highlights

High-risk expansion: WazirX rolls out 20x leveraged futures and a memecoin launchpad despite unresolved user fund recovery.
Unpaid dues linger: Around 15% of user balances remain locked in Recovery Tokens after the $230M hack, with no clear buyback progress.
Conflict concerns grow: Multiple integrations tied to the same founder raise questions about transparency, priorities, and user trust.

WazirX had a productive March, starting with the release of a detailed guide on March 13th for its new crypto futures product. This product allows users to trade perpetual contracts in Indian Rupees (INR) with leverage up to 20 times the initial investment.

The next day, the company announced on X that users could try the product with early access before it was released to everyone.

WazirX then announced a partnership with Sikka.fun, a platform that makes it easy for anyone to create and trade digital tokens, even without coding skills. Sikka.fun is built on Shardeum, a blockchain created by Nischal Shetty – who also founded and runs WazirX.

WazirX and Sikka.fun are partnering to give away SHM tokens. The first 1,000 WazirX users to create a “Sikka Key” in their app and confirm it on the Sikka.fun Android app will each receive 50,000 SHM tokens.

Currently, one SHM token is worth around $0.00009. This means an airdrop of 50,000 SHM tokens is currently valued at approximately $4.50, which is about 375 Indian Rupees. It’s important to note that the token’s price has dropped significantly – over 99.9% – from its peak value of $0.37, which it reached in May 2025.

Shardeum’s total market value is currently less than $1 million. Over the past 24 hours, trading volume has been between $250,000 and $350,000 across all platforms where it’s traded.

Those are the facts. Now, the questions.

When one founder’s projects keep feeding into each other

Nischal Shetty helped found both WazirX and Shardeum, the blockchain that powers Sikka.fun. In February 2024, he launched Pi42, a platform for trading perpetual crypto-INR futures. Now, WazirX is also offering futures trading, entering the same market as Pi42.

In just a few weeks, WazirX has significantly expanded its involvement with Shardeum. They’ve added the SHM token to their exchange, hosted a trading competition called “Highest Trader Kaun” with prizes sponsored by Shardeum, launched futures trading that rivals a separate project by the same founder, and recently partnered with Sikka.fun, a platform built on the Shardeum network. This partnership benefits Shardeum by increasing activity and generating fees within its ecosystem.

Each of these actions is a business decision on its own. However, they all work together in a cycle: WazirX adds Shetty’s token for trading, then runs promotions sponsored by Shardeum to encourage trading of that token. WazirX also collaborates with a platform built on Shetty’s blockchain, which requires users to use and hold SHM. Ultimately, WazirX’s large user base of 16 million people helps distribute everything involved.

WazirX hasn’t revealed any details about its partnership with Shardeum, including whether Shardeum is paying for the integration or if trading fees from SHM on WazirX are being used to repurchase Recovery Tokens.

That absence of clarity is the issue. Not the partnership itself.

What Sikka.fun actually is

Sikka.fun lets anyone easily create a new digital coin with a total of 1 billion coins. Here’s how the coins are distributed: 70% are used for public trading, 20% are set aside for making the coin easily available on decentralized exchanges, and 10% are used to reward people who refer others. Creators of these coins earn 0.5% of every trade, paid in SHM. They also automatically earn 2% of any coin purchases made without a referral link.

This model isn’t original; it’s based on the popular Pump.fun template from Solana. Pump.fun gained notoriety for allowing anyone to quickly create memecoins, though many of these lost value almost immediately. Sikka.fun does the same thing, but is designed for users in India and operates as a mobile app built on the Shardeum blockchain.

Shardeum promotes Sikka.fun as a platform where anyone can easily create and experiment with their own digital coins, regardless of location or language, and without upfront costs. The idea is that it’s open to everyone. However, similar platforms have often resulted in financial losses for most users, especially those who join later when the initial hype has subsided and prices are already inflated.

Each user is receiving 50,000 SHM tokens in an airdrop, which currently isn’t worth much – less than $5. While it won’t make anyone rich, it’s enough to cover the costs of using the platform and trying it out. The main benefit isn’t financial; it’s about bringing WazirX users into the Shardeum world, increasing activity on the blockchain, and creating some demand for the SHM token, especially now that its value is near a record low and its total market value is under $1 million.

The $230 million that still hangs over everything

These events didn’t occur in isolation. In July 2024, the cryptocurrency exchange WazirX suffered a cyberattack resulting in the loss of around $230 million from its secure wallet. Investigations point to the Lazarus Group, a hacking organization linked to North Korea, as being responsible. This attack eliminated almost half of WazirX’s holdings and left the funds of 4.4 million users inaccessible.

The exchange was closed for over a year and a half while it went through a legal restructuring process in Singapore. This process involved a plan to share the financial impact of the issues among all users, even those who hadn’t experienced any losses themselves. In October 2025, a Singapore court approved this plan, and trading on the exchange reopened on October 24th.

After the hack, users received around 85% of the funds they had before. The remaining 15% will be given as Recovery Tokens (RTs) starting in January 2026. These tokens can’t be traded or withdrawn, and their value depends on WazirX recovering at least $10 million worth of assets or generating that much in profit each quarter. So far, only $3 million out of the $230 million stolen has been recovered.

Shetty openly admitted the difficulty of the situation, explaining that the exchange needed to earn $235 million in revenue over three years to fully compensate Recovery Token holders. He emphasized that this was a significant amount of money, stating it wasn’t a small sum.

Concerns about Shilpa Shetty’s actions after the WazirX hack continue to emerge. Reports indicate she transferred all shares of a company connected to WazirX to her wife shortly after the security breach, and this transfer wasn’t made public.

He’s also been criticized for promoting Shardeum while WazirX customers were waiting for court rulings regarding their frozen funds. Additionally, he questioned the community about why they hadn’t cautioned the exchange about keeping 45% of its reserves in one wallet.

Considering this situation, WazirX is now encouraging users to try leveraged futures trading and a new platform for memecoins. Both of these features benefit businesses linked to the same person who founded WazirX.

The ZERO controversy has not been forgotten

The new partnership with Sikka.fun and the launch of futures trading come after a December 2025 issue with WazirX’s ZERO subscription. Users claimed they were automatically signed up for a paid plan without their permission. WazirX is accused of covering the subscription cost by selling off users’ cryptocurrency holdings – even from accounts that hadn’t been used in a long time, some since a previous security breach.

WazirX shared old blog posts and emails to show they had previously discussed this topic. Some users on X (formerly Twitter) criticized this practice, calling it a deceptive tactic. WazirX hasn’t officially stated whether money from its ZERO subscription service will be used to repurchase Recovery Tokens.

Now, people are also wondering about new products. Will fees from trading futures contracts go towards compensating those affected by the hack? And will any money earned through partnerships like Sikka.fun or activity related to Shardeum on WazirX be used to cover outstanding debts? These are fair questions to ask, considering the exchange has been focusing on a plan to “Restructure, Restart, and Rebuild” after the security breach.

No regulatory safety net for any of this

Currently, cryptocurrency futures trading in India isn’t overseen by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). This means there are no safeguards like trading limits, guaranteed settlements, or a fund to protect investors trading these derivatives. While WazirX is registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to prevent money laundering, this registration doesn’t cover how the exchange manages the risks associated with leveraged crypto products.

India’s Finance Ministry is talking with SEBI and the Reserve Bank of India to create clear rules for cryptocurrency trading. Right now, things like crypto futures and new token offerings don’t have the same protections that Indian investors usually expect in other financial markets.

Recently, India’s market regulator, SEBI, increased requirements for stock options and futures trading, like the size of contracts and the amount of money needed to trade, to shield individual investors from risky borrowing. Overall, India is heading towards stricter rules for these types of investments. However, WazirX is going in the opposite direction, offering high leverage – up to 20 times the investment – and tools to create new tokens, even though many of its users have already experienced losses on the platform.

The pattern

Here is what WazirX’s timeline looks like since October 2025:

In October 2025, trading resumed on WazirX with most account balances – 85% – restored. The following month, November 2025, saw the launch of the WazirX ZERO subscription, but it quickly received negative feedback due to automatic enrollment. January 2026 brought Recovery Tokens for users, which couldn’t be traded but were linked to potential future earnings. February 2026 marked the listing of SHM on WazirX, accompanied by a trading contest with prizes sponsored by Shardeum. By March 2026, futures trading was available with up to 20x leverage, and WazirX partnered with Sikka.fun to connect users with the Shardeum ecosystem.

Honestly, it’s been a rough few months. Out of the $230 million that was stolen, we’ve only managed to recover around $3 million – it’s frozen, but actually getting it back is another story. There’s been no news about them using recovered funds to buy back Recovery Tokens, which is frustrating. The decentralized exchange they promised to build to generate revenue for those of us who lost money still hasn’t launched. And to top it off, the SHM token they’re now giving away and promoting on WazirX has crashed – it’s down 60% since it was listed, and a staggering 99% from its peak. It’s just disheartening to watch.

WazirX continues to launch new features, but previous commitments remain unfulfilled. Plus, the founder’s unrelated projects are frequently promoted alongside these announcements.

WazirX hasn’t done anything illegal, and it’s important to state that upfront. It’s standard practice for cryptocurrency exchanges to collaborate with projects, list their tokens, and introduce new features. However, maintaining customer trust is crucial, and WazirX significantly eroded that trust in July 2024. Simply releasing new products won’t be enough to restore it; the exchange needs to address the growing number of concerns being raised.

WazirX is making progress with new features, but it’s still falling behind on fulfilling its financial obligations. This difference isn’t shrinking – it’s growing. Until WazirX prioritizes resolving these outstanding debts with the same speed it uses for launching new products, any new announcements will inevitably raise questions about the missing funds.

2026-03-18 15:23