During an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, BitBNS CEO Gaurav Dahake revealed that the Indian cryptocurrency exchange did not inform its users about a $7.5 million hack that occurred on Feb. 1, 2022. Instead, the company cited "system maintenance" as the reason for the disruption. Dahake explained that law enforcement authorities advised against disclosing the hack to users and that BitBNS immediately contacted them after discovering the breach.
While Dahake claimed to have proper logs and case IDs, CoinDesk has not independently verified this information. The hack was first made public by a well-known crypto analyst, ZachXBT. Dahake said that some of the funds were recovered with the help of authorities and other exchanges. Despite the incident, BitBNS remains operational as long as it is legal to operate. Dahake also invited others to assist in the case and pledged to work with ZachXBT to "weed out the bad actors."