Bitget CEO Gracy Chen expressed low optimism about fully recovering the $388 million in crypto stolen from the exchange last week. Chen said Tuesday she views the February 2025 Bybit hack as a direct comparison for Bitget’s recent security breach.
Hackers compromised Bitget’s systems Thursday, initially leading to a reported loss of $352 million in digital assets. Chen later updated this figure to $388 million after a complete accounting of transfers.
Chen highlighted the Bybit incident, where approximately $1.5 billion worth of Ether was stolen. Bybit managed to freeze and recover a combined $80 million, representing only about 3.5 percent of the total stolen funds after roughly a year. Chen specifically said, “That’s only the freezing. It’s not about recovery yet,” underscoring the challenge.
In response to the exploit, Bitget launched a bounty program. The exchange offers 5 percent of funds for those frozen and an additional 5 percent for those successfully recovered.
Specific mitigation efforts have yielded some results. The NEAR Intents team reported Monday it blocked more than $50 million in assets linked to the attack. The team froze about $500,000 of these funds.
Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle also took action. They blacklisted a wallet associated with the exploit, freezing $318,013 across USDt and USDC. This move prevents the movement of those specific stablecoins, impacting the hacker's liquidity.
Bitget initiated the resumption of user withdrawals in stages. Bitcoin transactions became available Monday, with Ethereum withdrawals following Tuesday.
Chen addressed the potential perpetrators behind the security breach. Immediately after the attack, she suggested North Korea might be responsible, citing “IP addresses that match the VPN choices by a certain [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] group.” However, she added that Bitget had not “totally ruled out” the possibility of an inside job.
The $388 million security breach stands as one of the largest to impact the crypto industry in 2026. This follows a $320 million exploit of the Liquid Network earlier in September.
Historically, other attacks include the $615 million Ronin Bridge hack in 2022 and the $611 million hack of the Poly Network in 2021.
Bitget maintains a $464 million protection fund, which the exchange said covers every user impacted by the breach. The exchange kept trading and deposits active throughout the incident.
