Rs 2 crore reward for informer in Coinsecure crypto theft case

A day after, India's biggest cryptocurrency theft, the victim Coinsecure-- a cryptocurrency exchange has announced a bounty of Rs. 2 crore which is almost 10 per cent of the amount theft to anyone who helps them recover the lost bitcoins.

"We are seeking help from the Bitcoin community and all our users who can help us identify the hacker or give us any information that could lead us to recover funds, " Coinsecure updated on its website.

On Friday, the Indian bitcoin exchange lodged an FIR with Delhi Cyber Cell, saying that around 438.318 bitcoins worth over Rs 19 crore were siphoned off from its exchange. Following the incident, the case was registered under IPC sections and Section 66 of the IT Act.

The FIR report reveals that CSO of Coinsecure, Amitabh Saxena, is accused of playing role in this theft as private keys are kept with him. The exchange, further, urged to seize Saxena’s passport, fearing that he might fly out of India.

The exchange servers have been seized by the cybersecurity officials. It is also being checked if more wallets have been compromised as private keys were found online.

According to an ET report, Some 11,000 customers are said to be affected by the alleged theft. Coinsecure also claims that it will start returning amounts to the affected parties within the next 15 days.

For uninitiated, Coinsecure was founded in July 2014 by Mohit Kalra and Benson Samuel. The company its bitcoin exchange for the domestic market on January 1, 2015. It offers an algorithmic trading bitcoin exchange where users can buy and sell bitcoins for actual money at a fee of 0.3 per cent of the amount bought or exchanged.

Coinsecure, which claimed to have over two lakh users across the country raised over $1.2 million investment round in 2016. The firm start-up had also received a seed round of $3,00,000 from angel investor Sanjeev Kalra in 2015.

Earlier this month, one of largest bitcoin fraudster in Indian history Amit Bhardwaj was arrested in Bangkok. Bhardwaj had been on the large and facing scam charges worth $300 million (approx Rs 2,000 crore) attached to his company GainBitcoin.