Bitget said on Sept. 30 that it had restored its Protection Fund to more than $300 million after absorbing the financial impact of the Sept. 24 security breach. The exchange describes the fund as an additional safeguard for customers, separate from the reserves backing their account balances.

In its announcement, Bitget said the fund absorbed approximately $388 million in impact from the incident, while customer balances remained accurate and unaffected. The exchange said it fulfilled a Sept. 28 pledge to return the fund to at least $300 million within a week, completing the replenishment two days after making that commitment. The announcement does not quantify the new capital contributed to the fund, and Bitget's fund page states that its displayed valuation uses prices at midnight UTC each day.

Because users would claim against this fund for platform-wide losses under Bitget's published conditions, its reported level is one of the few visible measures of the exchange's stated capacity to absorb incident-related costs. Backstops of kind are a common feature among major centralized exchanges — Binance, for example, has maintained its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) since 2018 — though fund sizes, funding sources, and claim terms differ across platforms, making each exchange's own published conditions the operative reference for its users.

What the restored backstop covers

Under Bitget's published fund conditions, users may submit claims when accounts are compromised, or when assets are stolen or lost through platform-wide events not attributable to their own actions or trading behavior. The exchange retains the right to assess claims and investigate affected accounts or assets, with outcomes subject to its findings.

Eligibility to submit a claim does not guarantee reimbursement of a particular loss, and the reported replenishment does not remove that assessment process or establish that compensation has been completed.

A 2023 advisory from the PCAOB's Office of the Investor Advocate noted that proof-of-reserves reports are not audits, may omit liabilities or borrowed assets, and cannot assure the subsequent availability of assets.

Withdrawal access follows a separate timetable

Withdrawal access continues to follow its own asset and network timetable. In a Sept. 30 service-opening notice, Bitget said USDT withdrawals opened on Ethereum, BSC, Solana and Tron. The exchange's incident timetable schedules the remaining cryptocurrencies, fiat, and peer-to-peer services for Oct. 2 at 08:00 UTC. Customers awaiting those services still face a separate milestone from the fund restoration that Bitget has reported.

Whether that Oct. 2 deadline holds, whether Bitget later discloses the capital it added to the fund, and how the exchange's claim assessments conclude are the remaining items for readers tracking the platform's recovery.