WazirX at 8% Market Share, 15% User Funds Still Locked as Nischal Pushes AI & Futures

WazirX founder and CEO Nischal Shetty has outlined ambitious product plans including an AI trading assistant and futures contracts, even as the exchange continues to struggle with the aftermath of a $230 million hack attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. Nearly two years after the July 2024 breach, WazirX’s market share has collapsed from a peak of 50–60% to approximately 8–10%, Shetty acknowledged in a recent interview with Press Trust of India.

The exchange restructured under a Singapore High Court-approved scheme in October 2025 and returned about 85% of user holdings. The remaining 15% was converted into non-tradable Recovery Tokens issued in January 2026. These tokens cannot be withdrawn or traded, and their value depends on WazirX generating at least $10 million in recoverable value per quarter — a threshold the exchange has yet to publicly confirm meeting.

Shetty’s product roadmap includes WazirX AI, a feature that lets users instruct an AI to research markets, track sentiment, and execute trades. He also highlighted WazirX ZERO, a ₹99/month unlimited trading subscription launched in November 2025, and a futures product that initially offered 20x leverage before being scaled back to 10x. The promised decentralized exchange (DEX) intended to generate revenue for creditors has not launched.

Concerns about transparency persist. Shetty did not disclose how much profit WazirX has generated since restarting or how much has been used to buy back Recovery Tokens. The WRX token has fallen 99.64% from its April 2021 peak to about $0.02, with daily volume below $20,000. Shetty’s overlapping business interests — including his role as co-founder of Shardeum and of competing futures platform Pi42 — have drawn criticism. WazirX has listed Shardeum’s SHM token, which has crashed over 99.9% from its all-time high, and runs trading contests for it.

On the security front, Shetty confirmed WazirX has moved cold wallet custody to BitGo and is integrating Fireblocks. He cited customer satisfaction scores climbing from 60% at relaunch to over 90%. Yet the exchange faces unresolved legal scrutiny: a criminal writ petition against Shetty was dismissed in five minutes by the Supreme Court of India, which cited the absence of proper crypto regulation. WazirX representatives were called before India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on May 20, 2026, but the outcome has not been made public.

Shetty has set a goal of regaining a 50% market share but offered no concrete timeline. “Exchanges that have had attacks of the magnitude like ours have usually wound down,” he said. “We are probably one of those rare situations where we’ve restarted with the objective of earning back the 15%.” Critics note that without confirmed buybacks or profit disclosure, trust remains elusive.