Bitget was hacked for $350 million, why did the hacker convert the stablecoins into ETH first?
Why, at the beginning, on-chain chatter said it was around $180 million, but in the end Bitget’s official statement said $351.6 million?
More notably:
After the hacker received part of the stablecoins, they didn’t just hold on to them.
Instead, they quickly swapped them for ETH.
Does that mean the hacker is more bullish on ETH?
Most likely, no.
The real reason is probably much simpler than “betting on ETH going up.”
Stablecoins like USDT and USDC have centralized issuers behind them.
Once it’s confirmed that the funds belong to the hacker’s address, the issuer has the ability to freeze the related assets.
ETH is different.
There is no centralized issuing company for ETH, so it can’t simply hit the pause button on the hacker’s ETH wallet directly.
So the more reasonable explanation for quickly swapping stablecoins into ETH is:
To reduce the risk of assets being frozen—not to speculate on ETH price gains.
Another question is:
Why did the on-chain data at first show around $180 million, while Bitget later said the loss was $351.6 million?
Because these are two different ways of counting.
Around $180 million is what on-chain analysts estimated at the time based on abnormal funds seen in publicly tagged addresses.
$351.6 million is the amount Bitget later calculated internally as affected.
So you can’t simply interpret it as “they lost an additional $170 million.”
Currently, Bitget has paused withdrawals, while deposits and trading are still working normally.
The official says the cold wallets were not affected, and that the protection fund can cover the loss.
But the truly critical question still hasn’t been answered:
How exactly did the attacker get in?
Was there a compromise of the wallet private key?
Or was it a problem with the back-end system, signing permissions, or other infrastructure?
So what’s really worth watching this time isn’t whether ETH will rise because the hacker swapped coins.
Instead, there are three key questions:
How much of the money can still be recovered?
When will withdrawals be restored?
Where exactly is the attack entry point? $ETH $BTC
Why, at the beginning, on-chain chatter said it was around $180 million, but in the end Bitget’s official statement said $351.6 million?
More notably:
After the hacker received part of the stablecoins, they didn’t just hold on to them.
Instead, they quickly swapped them for ETH.
Does that mean the hacker is more bullish on ETH?
Most likely, no.
The real reason is probably much simpler than “betting on ETH going up.”
Stablecoins like USDT and USDC have centralized issuers behind them.
Once it’s confirmed that the funds belong to the hacker’s address, the issuer has the ability to freeze the related assets.
ETH is different.
There is no centralized issuing company for ETH, so it can’t simply hit the pause button on the hacker’s ETH wallet directly.
So the more reasonable explanation for quickly swapping stablecoins into ETH is:
To reduce the risk of assets being frozen—not to speculate on ETH price gains.
Another question is:
Why did the on-chain data at first show around $180 million, while Bitget later said the loss was $351.6 million?
Because these are two different ways of counting.
Around $180 million is what on-chain analysts estimated at the time based on abnormal funds seen in publicly tagged addresses.
$351.6 million is the amount Bitget later calculated internally as affected.
So you can’t simply interpret it as “they lost an additional $170 million.”
Currently, Bitget has paused withdrawals, while deposits and trading are still working normally.
The official says the cold wallets were not affected, and that the protection fund can cover the loss.
But the truly critical question still hasn’t been answered:
How exactly did the attacker get in?
Was there a compromise of the wallet private key?
Or was it a problem with the back-end system, signing permissions, or other infrastructure?
So what’s really worth watching this time isn’t whether ETH will rise because the hacker swapped coins.
Instead, there are three key questions:
How much of the money can still be recovered?
When will withdrawals be restored?
Where exactly is the attack entry point? $ETH $BTC