Update (July 29 at 4:21 am UTC): This article has been updated to reflect a public denial from CoinDCX CEO Samit Gupta over the report.
The CEO of Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX has denied that his company is in talks to be acquired by Coinbase for nearly $1 billion.
Indian news outlet Mint on Monday reported that Coinbase was in “advanced discussions” to acquire CoinDCX, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the matter, but Sumit Gupta denied this in an X post on Tuesday.
”Ignore the rumours! CoinDCX is ‘super focused’ on building for India’s crypto story and not up for sale,” Gupta wrote. ”Will share more later but just wanted to clarify this upfront!”
Prior to Gupta’s statement, a Coinbase spokesperson told Coinpectra that it wouldn’t comment on “rumors or speculation.”
“We have a bold mission to increase economic freedom in the world, and are constantly exploring opportunities around the world to build, buy, partner and invest to accelerate our roadmap.”
CoinDCX recovers from $44 million hack
The incident comes around 11 days after CoinDCX suffered a $44.2 million hack on July 18, when attackers breached an operational wallet and drained it within minutes.
The hackers compromised one of CoinDCX’s internal accounts used for “liquidity provisions” with another exchange through a server breach.
No user funds were affected by the exploit, according to CoinDCX CEO Sumit Gupta, as CoinDCX’s security setup ensured that all customer funds remained unaffected.
Last week, CoinDCX announced a new recovery bounty program that offers white hat hackers up to 25% of any recovered funds they can help trace and retrieve.
Related: Coinbase sues man using a Coinbase-like URL to make money
Coinbase registered with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit in March, possibly signaling its intention to expand its presence in the world’s most populous country.
Coinbase has been on an acquisition spree
Meanwhile, Coinbase in May completed a $2.9 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of Deribit as part of a move to position it as a leader in the crypto derivatives market.
Earlier this month, Coinbase also acquired Liquifi, a token-management platform serving early‑stage onchain builders.
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