CoinDCX has announced a ₹100 crore initiative called the Digital Suraksha Network (DSN) after co founders Sumit Gupta & Neeraj Khandelwal were briefly taken into police custody in connection with a fraud complaint tied to a fake website impersonating the exchange.

In a public statement, Gupta said the fraud was carried out through a fake domain, coindcx[.]pro, by impersonators who had no connection to CoinDCX, its systems, or its exchange operations. He also said no money moved through CoinDCX & no transaction took place on the company’s platform in relation to the complaint.

Three days after being taken into custody on March 21, the founders were granted bail by a Thane court on March 24. CoinDCX is now turning that episode into a larger call for cyber safety reform in India’s rapidly expanding digital finance ecosystem.

• Why CoinDCX Says This Is Bigger Than Crypto
• The ₹100 Crore Digital Suraksha Network
• What the Initiative Will Actually Build
• A Push for Shared Cyber Safety Standards

At the center of CoinDCX’s statement is a clear attempt to separate the exchange from the fraud that triggered the complaint. According to Gupta, the scam was executed through a fake website that used the CoinDCX name but had no operational link to the company.

He said the complainant himself confirmed in court that he did not know the founders personally & had never met them. If a fraudster uses a company’s brand, face, or name to deceive users, the people who may end up facing immediate scrutiny are not always the operators of the scam, but the people whose identity was misused.

Why CoinDCX Says This Is Bigger Than Crypto

A major part of the announcement is CoinDCX’s effort to shift the conversation away from one company’s legal scare & toward the wider scale of cyber fraud in India. The company says this is not just about crypto exchanges or virtual assets. It is about the growing attack surface across every business that operates online.

To make that case, CoinDCX pointed to the scale of digital fraud in India. The statement says that in 2025, Indians filed more than 28 lakh cybercrime complaints, with total financial losses reaching ₹22,495 crore. It also notes that investment scams accounted for a large majority of those losses. At the same time, only a small fraction of complaints reportedly converted into FIRs, highlighting the gap between reported fraud & meaningful enforcement action.

The statement also highlights the role of AI in intensifying the threat landscape. Deepfakes, cloned voices, synthetic identities, & AI generated scam infrastructure are making online fraud harder to identify & faster to scale. CoinDCX argues that fake websites are only one part of the next wave. Future fraud attempts may increasingly come through video calls, voice impersonation, fake KYC journeys, or highly convincing digital interactions that look real to everyday users.

That framing is important because it allows CoinDCX to place itself not just as a company responding to criticism, but as a company stepping forward with a national cyber safety agenda. Whether that position resonates with regulators & the broader public remains to be seen, but the company is clearly trying to recast a reputational crisis into an infrastructure conversation.

The ₹100 Crore Digital Suraksha Network

The headline announcement is the launch of Digital Suraksha Network, backed by a ₹100 crore commitment from CoinDCX. The company describes it as an effort to build the cyber safety infrastructure India’s digital finance ecosystem needs but does not yet have.

CoinDCX does not present DSN as a brand protection fund or a narrow anti scam initiative for its own users. Instead, it positions the network as shared infrastructure meant to serve citizens, regulators, law enforcement, financial platforms, & digital businesses more broadly.

That distinction matters because it suggests CoinDCX wants DSN to be seen as ecosystem infrastructure rather than a corporate campaign. In practice, that means opening up intelligence, supporting investigations, improving public awareness, & encouraging industry wide standards rather than simply adding more internal security layers.

I want to address what happened to Neeraj and me last week. Of course, it was quite shocking to us as well and honestly very disheartening. But today, we want to talk about what actually happened and more importantly, what we’re going to do about it.

On March 21, we were taken… pic.twitter.com/7uNEu0T3H3

— Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX) (@smtgpt) March 30, 2026

What the Initiative Will Actually Build

CoinDCX says DSN will focus on four broad pillars.

1. The first is consumer education at scale under a campaign called Caution Before Transaction.
   • This will include multilingual educational content, public awareness efforts, partnerships with consumer protection bodies, & financial literacy initiatives aimed at helping users identify fake platforms before they transact.
   • The company says this will not be limited to crypto, but will cover digital finance more broadly.
   • A key part of that education push is a proposed 24x7 WhatsApp helpline. CoinDCX says the helpline will be free & open to everyone, not just CoinDCX users.
2. The second pillar is an Open Fraud Intelligence API.
   • CoinDCX says it has already documented more than 1,200 fraudulent websites impersonating its platform over the last 21 months.
   • Instead of keeping that intelligence internal, it now plans to make it available in real time to law enforcement, banks, fintech companies, telecom providers, browsers, & potentially other exchanges.
3. The third pillar focuses on cyber safety infrastructure for law enforcement.
   • CoinDCX says many police stations & agencies still do not have the capacity to investigate digital financial fraud at the pace it now operates.
   • A scam website can be set up, promoted, used, & taken down in a very short time.
   • To address that, DSN plans to fund training programs in blockchain forensics & digital asset tracing, create rapid response support for active fraud cases, & provide technology grants for cybercrime coordination centers.
4. The fourth pillar is industry coordination. CoinDCX says DSN will support research, working groups, & recurring public reports that can help build common cyber safety standards across the digital finance sector.

A Push for Shared Cyber Safety Standards

One of the more policy driven parts of the announcement is CoinDCX’s call for regulators to work with the industry on common cyber safety standards. The company specifically mentions SEBI, FIU IND, & the Ministry of Finance as institutions it hopes will engage with this process.

CoinDCX says the Digital Suraksha Network will commission independent research on the scale of digital fraud, support a multi stakeholder working group, & publish quarterly State of Digital Trust reports. That suggests the company wants the initiative to move beyond awareness messaging & into recurring measurement, policy framing, & standards development.

The statement also points to CoinDCX’s existing engagements with law enforcement & public institutions, including work with the Enforcement Directorate, Delhi Police, I4C, the Income Tax Department, Goa Police, & SVPNPA. By listing these collaborations, CoinDCX appears to be reinforcing a long running narrative that it sees itself as a compliant & cooperative player in India’s digital asset ecosystem.

This announcement lands at a time when trust is becoming one of the most important battlegrounds in India’s digital economy. Payments are growing, fintech adoption is expanding, & digital assets remain part of the country’s broader online finance conversation. But that growth also means more users are exposed to impersonation scams, fake investment platforms, cloned identities, & AI enhanced deception.

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