Bitget Hit by $350 Million Exploit, the Largest Crypto Hack of 2026

Bitget, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has suffered a $351.6 million hot wallet drain in what is now the biggest crypto hack of 2026.

The incident was first flagged by Arkham Intelligence, an on-chain analytics platform, which observed massive withdrawals of AVAX, BNB, ETH, and stablecoins from the affected hot wallet, followed by the funds being swapped into ETH. Hot wallets are internet-connected accounts that exchanges rely on for day-to-day withdrawals and liquidity, in contrast to cold wallets, which are kept offline specifically to insulate reserve funds from remote attacks.

CEO: Cold Wallets Unaffected, Losses Fully Covered

In a recent statement, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the incident was contained to a single hot wallet and that funds held in the company's cold wallets were unaffected. She added that Bitget will cover the loss in full through its User Protection Fund, established in 2022, which currently holds more than $464 million — a balance that exceeds the reported loss. Protection funds of this kind have become a fixture among major exchanges, designed to absorb losses from security incidents without passing them on to users.

Exchange Response and Recovery Efforts

Bitget has temporarily suspended withdrawals while it conducts a security review. Deposits and trading continue as usual, and user balances on the exchange remain secure, according to the company.

The exchange has flagged the receiving address and is working with law enforcement authorities and on-chain security firms in an effort to recover the stolen funds. Address flagging is a standard part of post-hack response, marking the attacker's wallet so that exchanges and services that screen for tainted funds can block deposits from it. Bitget expects to publish a full incident report within 24 hours, detailing how the breach occurred and the remediation measures to be adopted. The company has not given a timeline for restoring withdrawals.

Where the Hack Ranks Among 2026 Crypto Thefts

The Bitget exploit now ranks as the largest crypto hack of 2026 so far in terms of total funds lost. It is followed by the Liquid Network's $320 million exploit and KeloDAO's $292 million hack.

The first half of the year set a record for the total number of cybersecurity incidents in the crypto industry, although recorded losses were much lower than in previous years. The Bitget breach, however, stands as the single biggest point of failure of the year to date — a reminder that outsized losses from a single incident remain possible even in a year when incident counts have run high while recorded losses stayed comparatively low.