Nearly $352M Moved From Crypto Exchange Bitget Wallets in Suspected Hack
Bitcoin Magazine Nearly $352M Moved From Crypto Exchange Bitget Wallets in Suspected Hack Crypto exchange Bitget detected unauthorized transfers and has temporarily halted withdrawals. This post Nea...
Crypto exchange Bitget detected unauthorized transfers and has temporarily halted withdrawals.
An estimated $351.6 million in crypto has been moved from digital asset exchange Bitget’s hot wallets in a suspected hack.
The platform’s CEO said in a Thursday statement that Bitget’s security team activated an emergency response when the movements were detected. Blockchain security firms had flagged the issue earlier in the day.
“At 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026, Bitget’s security systems detected unauthorized transfers from some of our hot wallets,” Bitget CEO Gracy Chen wrote on X. “Our security team activated emergency response protocols immediately.”
She added: “Bitget has navigated multiple market cycles. We will not run from this. Every dollar and every decision will be accounted for, transparently and in full.”
[SECURITY NOTICE] Bitget Hot Wallet Incident — September 24, 2026At 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026, Bitget's security systems detected unauthorized transfers from some of our hot wallets. Our security team activated emergency response protocols immediately.What we have…
Victoria, Seychelles-based Bitget is the sixth biggest exchange, processing over $1.1 billion in trading volume per day, according to CoinGecko data.
The incident comes as crypto security is in the limelight after a string of breaches this year have the community reeling. Just in July, hackers targeted a firmware bug in the popular bitcoin hardware wallet, Coldcard, to steal nearly $120 million in user funds.
And this month, purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoins — worth about $320 million at the time — from Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain’s federation wallet.
Chen added that the exchange’s cold wallets remained fully secure and that user funds were safe.
She wrote: “Bitget operates a three-tier wallet architecture — the breach contained only a portion of the hot wallet and warm wallet layers.”
According to the statement, deposits and trading remain fully operational but withdrawals are temporarily paused until a security review is complete.
Blockchain data firm Arkham Intelligence created a dashboard soon after the unauthorized transfers showing that a number of different cryptocurrencies — including stablecoins — had been moved from the Bitget hot wallet.
While Bitcoin was not on Arkham’s list, crypto security firm Hacken later said on X that the largest cryptocurrency had been moved.
Asanat Analysis — Why it matters
Bitget's $352M security breach signals a critical vulnerability in exchange infrastructure despite the platform's claimed security measures. The immediate withdrawal halt is standard incident response but reflects systemic risk: centralized exchanges remain high-value targets, and even tier-1 platforms with institutional backing can experience material compromises. This echoes Mt. Gox (2014), QuadrigaCX (2019), and FTX (2022)—each separated by years but underlining that exchange security remains unsolved at scale.
The incident reinforces why on-chain custody and self-sovereign wallet adoption matter architecturally. Bitget's user base will face liquidity lockdowns during investigation, potentially weeks. Contagion effects depend on Bitget's solvency and insurance reserves; if uninsured or under-reserved, users absorb losses. This typically triggers brief flight-to-safety into spot holdings and smaller exchanges, though major competitors (Binance, Kraken, OKX) usually benefit from reputation recovery buys.
For the sector: regulatory scrutiny will intensify on exchange reserve proof-of-solvency standards. Currently voluntary or opaque. A major hack of a top-10 exchange by volume could accelerate mandatory on-chain audits or custody segregation rules, similar to legacy banking's post-2008 reforms. Watch for Bitget's disclosure of root cause—internal compromise, supply-chain attack, or protocol exploit each signal different systemic risks.