Bitget CEO Gracy Chen announced a security incident shortly after independent researchers detected abnormal wallet transfers.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget suffered a system security breach involving approximately $351.6 million in assets, CEO Gracy Chen stated in a social media post on Thursday.

Chen wrote in her post that Bitget's cold wallets and user funds remain safe, but some hot wallets experienced "unauthorized transfers." She said Bitget maintains a "user protection fund" that currently exceeds $464 million.

"Cold wallets remain completely secure. Bitget employs a three-tier wallet architecture — this incident only affected a portion of the hot wallet and warm wallet layers," Chen wrote.

She stated that deposits and trading functions remain online, but the exchange is "temporarily" suspending withdrawals until a security review is completed.

Prior to this, on-chain data and independent blockchain researchers had already detected abnormal wallet activity and initially reported that approximately $183 million in digital assets had been transferred out of wallets tagged as belonging to Bitget.

Emmett Gallic, an analyst at blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, stated on social media that the transactions involved three Bitget hot wallets and one cold wallet across multiple blockchains, with the funds subsequently consolidated and transferred to a single address.

According to his analysis, the assets involved included Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Avalanche (AVAX), and the USDT0 stablecoin.

"It appears Bitget just suffered a hack worth $178 million," Gallic said. He later added that more funds were still being moved.

Chen promised that the company would release an incident investigation report within 24 hours.

Difference Between Hot Wallets and Cold Wallets

Hot wallets are typically connected to systems that process transactions and withdrawals, making them more accessible than cold wallets. Cold wallets, by contrast, are designed to isolate the keys used for transaction signing from internet-connected infrastructure to enhance security.

If Bitget ultimately confirms losses amounting to $351.6 million, this could become one of the largest cryptocurrency hacking incidents of 2026.

In September of this year, security incidents in the crypto market occurred frequently. Earlier this month, Liquid Network suffered another hack, losing approximately $320 million. However, the attackers subsequently claimed to be "white hat hackers" — attackers who claim their purpose is to discover vulnerabilities and help fix security issues.

Bitget's platform token BGB fell sharply after news of the hack spread, though the token's price had recovered somewhat by 22:10 UTC.