Bitget says $351.6 million affected in wallet breach, pauses withdrawals

Crypto exchange Bitget said about $351.6 million in assets were affected by unauthorized transfers from some of its hot wallets, prompting it to temporarily suspend withdrawals while it investigates the security incident.

Bitget said its security systems detected the transfers at 18:31 UTC on Thursday, after which it activated its emergency response procedures.

The exchange said the incident was contained to part of its hot and warm wallet layers, while its cold wallets remained secure.

Bitget shares of the cryptocurrency exchange's own ecosystem tokens were not the focus of the announcement.

The company said customer account balances remain accurate, while deposits and trading remain operational. Withdrawals have been paused as a precaution and will resume once the security review is complete. 

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the affected amount is fully covered by the exchange's User Protection Fund, which holds more than $464 million, according to the company's security notice.

The exchange said it has identified and flagged abnormal transfer addresses and notified law enforcement agencies and on-chain security firms. 

The exchange has not yet disclosed how the wallets were compromised. Bitget said it would not speculate on the attack vector while the investigation remains ongoing and planned to publish a fuller incident report, including a root-cause analysis and corrective actions, within 24 hours. 

The incident has already affected additional services: Bitget said its on-chain trading service was temporarily unavailable on Friday as the broader security review continued. 

Earlier blockchain analysis had produced lower estimates of the affected funds, but Bitget's own assessment is now approximately $351.6 million.

CoinDesk reported that the incident was initially flagged through unusual on-chain activity involving wallets associated with the exchange.