Bitget says $351.6M stolen in crypto wallet breach
The exchange says its protection fund can cover the loss while withdrawals stay paused pending investigation.
Bitget reported that roughly $351.6 million was taken from its hot and warm wallets after monitoring tools detected unusual transfers late Thursday; TechCrunch describes it as the largest known crypto theft of the year. CEO Gracy Chen said the incident affected Ethereum, XRP Ledger, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, BSC and Base, and linked the activity to patterns associated with North Korean hacking groups. The exchange says an intruder abused a backend wallet system to falsify transaction data and trigger authorization, but that further unauthorized transfers are no longer possible. Withdrawals remain suspended until investigators approve a safe restart, while deposits and trading continue; Bitget says its protection fund holds more than $464 million to cover customer losses.
Why it matters
The hack directly affects Bitget customers whose assets sat in the compromised wallets, but the exchange says its protection fund is large enough to absorb the loss. Users can still deposit and trade, yet cannot withdraw until investigators clear a restart, putting short-term limits on access to funds and focusing attention on how exchanges secure multi-chain wallet infrastructure.
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Sources
- BleepingComputer
- TechCrunch