Bitget CEO Gracy Chen disclosed the security incident after blockchain researchers and on-chain data identified unusual movements involving wallets associated with the exchange.
Crypto exchange Bitget said approximately $351.6 million was exposed in a system breach on Thursday, according to Chen in a post on social media.
Chen said on X that Bitget’s cold wallets and customer funds remained secure, while unauthorized transfers had occurred from some of the exchange’s hot wallets.
She added that Bitget’s user protection fund held more than $464 million, providing additional coverage for users.
“Cold wallets remain fully secure,” Chen said, explaining that Bitget uses a three-layer wallet structure and that the incident was limited to part of its hot- and warm-wallet infrastructure.
Deposits and trading services remained available, but withdrawals were temporarily suspended while the exchange carried out a security investigation.
Before Bitget publicly disclosed the incident, on-chain monitoring tools and independent blockchain researchers had identified unusual transactions. Initial reports indicated that approximately $183 million in digital assets had been transferred from wallets identified as belonging to Bitget.
Emmett Gallic, an analyst with blockchain intelligence company Arkham Intelligence, said the activity involved three Bitget hot wallets and one cold wallet across several blockchain networks. The assets were subsequently consolidated into a single address, with ETH, BNB, AVAX and USDT0 among the tokens identified in the transactions.
Gallic initially estimated the losses at about $178 million and later noted that additional funds were moving.
Chen said Bitget would release a detailed incident report within 24 hours.
Hot wallets are connected to infrastructure that facilitates transactions and withdrawals, making them more exposed than cold wallets. Cold-storage systems are designed to isolate signing credentials from internet-connected systems, providing an additional security layer.
If the full $351.6 million exposure is confirmed, the incident could rank among the largest crypto hacks of 2026. The market has already faced a major security breach this month, with the Liquid Network losing $320 million in an attack earlier in September. The attackers in that incident claimed to be “white hat hackers.”
Bitget’s native BGB token initially dropped sharply as reports of the breach emerged but recovered some of its losses by 22:10 UTC. BGB was down 2.9% at press time.
Bitcoin was down approximately 0.29% over the previous 24 hours, while ether had declined 0.2%.
The article was updated Sept. 24, 2026, at 22:10 UTC to include the market reaction to the reported breach and at 22:05 UTC to clarify the description of the exploit.

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