What happened
At 18:31 UTC on September 24, Bitget’s security systems detected unauthorized transfers leaving part of the exchange’s hot and warm wallets. The affected amount reached US$351.6 million — the largest hack of 2026 so far.
How the attack worked
According to CEO Gracy Chen, the attackers did not gain access to Bitget’s private keys — that possibility has already been ruled out by the company. Instead, they compromised an internal system of the wallet infrastructure, falsified transaction data, and managed to trigger the exchange’s normal authorization process to move the funds. Bitget confirmed that the outflow has already been contained and that there are no more unauthorized transfers currently in progress.
What is protected and what is suspended
Cold wallets: remain 100% secure, with no involvement in the incident.
Users’ balances: correct and protected, according to Bitget.
Deposits and trading: operating normally.
Withdrawals: suspended as a precaution, with no defined timeline for resumption.
Coverage: Bitget’s User Protection Fund has more than $464 million — enough to cover the entire loss.
Among the assets that left the compromised wallets are ETH, USDC, USDT, BNB, and AVAX, according to on-chain tracking.
Suspicion (still preliminary) about North Korea
Bitget says it has preliminary evidence — IP and VPN patterns — that point to the possible involvement of a North Korean hacking group, but it treats the attribution as unconfirmed while the investigation continues. The company promised to publish a complete technical report, including the root cause of the attack, once the findings are concluded.
Context: a difficult year for crypto security
The case adds to a string of incidents that already marked 2026: in July, a firmware failure in the Coldcard hardware wallet led to losses of about $120 million; this month, Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain lost about $320 million in an incident attributed to "white hat" hackers. With $351.6 million, Bitget is entering the list as one of the biggest cases of the year.
Exchange security is a serious matter, and it’s worth keeping a close eye on when it involves values of this magnitude. I’ll keep bringing this kind of update as soon as it comes out — follow me here on Binance Square.
Informational content, based on official Bitget statements