Bitget Confirms $351.6 Million Unauthorized Transfers, Suspends Withdrawals Amid Security Review
Key Takeaways
- •Bitget confirmed unauthorized transfers affecting approximately $351.6 million in assets and temporarily suspended withdrawals while it investigates the security breach.
- •The breach was detected in a limited number of hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on Thursday and was contained to the hot and warm wallet layers, with cold wallets remaining secure.
- •Affected assets included Ether, XRP, USDt, USDC, Avalanche, BNB and USDT0 across the Ethereum, XRP Ledger, Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain and Arbitrum networks, with Ethereum holding the main concentration of stolen funds.
- •Bitget flagged addresses tied to the transfers and contacted law enforcement and onchain security firms, while user balances remained intact and deposits and trading continued operating normally.
- •CEO Gracy Chen said the User Protection Fund, holding more than $464 million, more than covers the affected funds, and Bitget expects withdrawals to resume within hours or days ahead of a full incident report within 24 hours.
Crypto exchange Bitget has confirmed unauthorized transfers affecting approximately $351.6 million in assets and has temporarily suspended withdrawals while it investigates the security breach.
According to the exchange, its security systems detected the unauthorized transfers, which involved a limited number of hot wallets, at 18:31 UTC on Thursday, prompting the activation of emergency response procedures.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the breach was contained to a portion of the exchange's hot and warm wallet layers, while its cold wallets remained secure. Hot wallets stay connected to the internet to process day-to-day withdrawals, warm wallets serve as an intermediate tier, and cold wallets hold assets offline — a layered setup commonly used by centralized exchanges to limit how much customer money is reachable in a single incident.
Speaking during a live Q&A, Chen said the affected assets included Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), USDt (USDT), USDC (USDC), Avalanche (AVAX), BNB (BNB) and USDT0 (USDT0) on Arbitrum. She identified Ethereum, the XRP Ledger, Avalanche, BNB Smart Chain and Arbitrum as the affected networks, with Ethereum accounting for the main concentration of observed stolen funds.
Early onchain reporting captured a smaller amount than the figure Bitget subsequently disclosed. Chen attributed the discrepancy to the incident extending beyond the Ethereum activity captured in initial onchain analysis.
Withdrawals remain suspended while the exchange conducts a security review, and Chen said she expects them to resume within hours or days. Suspending outbound transfers is a standard containment step while an exchange verifies wallet integrity.
Bitget said it has flagged addresses associated with the transfers and contacted law enforcement and onchain security firms. User account balances remained, the exchange said, while deposits and trading continue to operate normally.
Chen added that the affected funds are more than covered by Bitget's User Protection Fund, which currently holds more than $464 million, a reserve the exchange maintains to cover user losses from security events. The exchange will provide hourly updates and publish a full incident report, including a root-cause analysis and corrective actions, within 24 hours — the milestones that will confirm how the breach occurred and when withdrawal service fully returns.
Bitget disclosed the incident in a statement on X, while Chen shared details in her own post on X.
