Bitget Confirms $351 Million Hack, Points to North Korea
Sep 25, 2026
Bitget lost over $350 million in a hot wallet breach this week, and the exchange's CEO says the evidence points straight at North Korean hackers.
Bitget just had a rough week. The crypto exchange confirmed that hackers drained more than $351 million from several of its hot wallets, making it one of the biggest exchange hacks of 2026.
What happened
According to Bitget CEO Gracy Chen, the attackers moved fast, pulling funds across a mix of assets including XRP, ETH, USDT, USDC, and even gold-backed tokens. On-chain sleuths say a big chunk of the stolen crypto has already been converted to Ethereum, which is much harder to freeze or trace.
Fingers point at North Korea
Chen said investigators found VPN usage patterns that match groups linked to North Korea's Lazarus network, though she was careful to note nothing is confirmed with total certainty yet. Bitget has frozen withdrawals while it works with blockchain analytics firms to trace the funds, and it's promised a $464 million protection fund to make affected users whole.
This isn't the first time state-linked hackers have targeted a major exchange, and it probably won't be the last. Worth keeping an eye on how Bitget handles reimbursement over the next few weeks.