During 2021, when everyone was “investing” in cryptocurrency, I did it too. Partly due to curiousity and rest due to FOMO. I always believed (and still do) that cryptocurrencies have huge benefits (and drawbacks as well), but treating them as an asset beats the entire purpose of any currency.
At that time, crypto was what AI is now and cryptocurrency exchanges were what everyone was building. I decided to go with WazirX and deposited a small amount. Bought me some sweet ETH as a starting point. The hype eventually died down, I moved some of my assets to Binance and left some in WazirX to diversify exchanges since none of them were regulated at that time. Eventually, the hype died down and so did everyone’s interest. It stopped being volatile and most of the people moved on.
I still kept some crypto but eventually stopped using the apps.
The 2024 Hack
On 18 July 2024, WazirX was hacked. $235.9 million USD of digital assets stolen. Reading that news reminded me that I had some crypto there too.
After the hack, the app was inaccessible & everyone’s assets were in limbo. In October 2025, they announced that 85% of the funds would be returned to users and came up with a recovery token scheme for the rest of the funds.
Since the amount of money I had there was minuscule and life had gotten busier, I didn’t bother accessing it.
The emails
Last week, I was cleaning my inbox and saw this email:
WazirX ZERO is a simple, fixed-fee model that lets you trade unlimited crypto with zero trading fees. Instead of paying a percentage every time you buy or sell, you pay a flat monthly amount of ₹99 (plus applicable taxes), and enjoy total fee-free trading across markets.
That’s weird, they cut ₹116.82 INR from my account. But how ? I don’t remember having any significant INR in my wallet nor did they have auto-mandate access to my bank account. Then I read the invoice:
WHAT THE F**K! These morons sold my Ethereum to pay for a subscription plan I never opted into.
During renewal, the system checks your balances in a simple order.
- Your INR balance will be deducted first, and
- If your INR balance is insufficient, the amount is taken from crypto balances, starting with the lowest-value holdings.
This plan is opt-in by default for their entire user base. I had not used the app since 2021, yet I was liable to pay for it every month from my crypto holdings.
The dark pattern
A dark pattern is a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills
On looking it up, a lot of users complained. There were reddit posts, twitter posts and even a Hindu Article. But this dark pattern did not change.
The decision makers at WazirX took a conscious call that within a month of reopening the platform after 1.5 years of inactivity, the best way to treat your users is to silently sell their crypto for a service they never opted for.
Aftermath
The first thing I had to did was to sell my existing holdings, and I then wrote a mail to their support team informing them that I never consented for the plan. They refunded me for 3 months without any questions. Then I had to write another mail asking for a complete refund, and kudos to the support team, I got all my money back within a day.
Almost as if they knew what they were doing and asked the support team to quietly refund anyone who raised a concern.
How is this even allowed? Imagine the outrage if Zerodha or Groww (popular stock trading platforms) signed you up for a “zero trading fee” plan and silently sold your Axis Bank stock to cover the fees.
We truly live in the era of enshittification.