Bitget wallets drained of about $183 million as users report blocked withdrawals

NEW YORK — Approximately $183 million in digital assets was transferred without authorization from wallets belonging to cryptocurrency exchange Bitget late Thursday, according to blockchain data and security analysts. Customers have reported blocked withdrawals and account errors, leaving users locked out of their accounts. Bitget has reportedly suspended withdrawals but has not issued a formal statement.

Blockchain tracking firms Bubblemaps and Arkham Intelligence, along with independent on-chain researchers, first detected the apparent breach. Transaction ledgers show a series of hot wallets officially tagged as Bitget’s being systematically drained over a one-hour period. The assets included Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Avalanche (AVAX), Binance Coin (BNB) and Tether Gold (XAUT). The funds were consolidated in a newly generated address beginning with “0xe410.”

The suspect outflow stopped abruptly six minutes after the initial transaction, and outgoing activity then paused for at least 20 minutes. Blockchain security analysts said the pattern was highly consistent with exchange administrators manually freezing compromised transaction queues. Bitget representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the status of user funds or the exact nature of the exploit.

The receiving wallet moved quickly to convert volatile holdings and easily traceable stablecoins into decentralized assets. Within six minutes of the initial breach, it used $19.67 million in LayerZero-wrapped Tether (USDT0) to buy 7,111 ETH on the Arbitrum network, routing the trades through decentralized exchange aggregators UniswapX and 1inch Fusion. The attacker paid about 5% above prevailing spot market rates to secure immediate block execution.

Founded in July 2018 and headquartered in the Seychelles, Bitget is one of the world’s largest non-U.S. cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchanges, with an estimated 20 million users globally. It has grown under CEO Gracy Chen through international expansion and high-profile marketing campaigns, including a multi-year partnership with global soccer star Lionel Messi.

Bitget established a User Protection Fund in August 2022 to reassure depositors against security compromises and subsequently raised its valuation to $300 million. The self-funded reserve consists of Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) in publicly viewable addresses. It was designed to cover customer losses from hacks, operational errors or systemic liquidations without drawing on standard user deposits.

The incident follows a February 2025 theft at rival exchange Bybit, which lost $1.4 billion in the largest cryptocurrency theft on record after attackers compromised a routine cold-wallet transfer by spoofing a multi-signature transaction screen. According to institutional security data, bad actors stole a combined $2.72 billion from centralized cryptocurrency exchanges and decentralized finance protocols throughout 2024.