By Why Is Bitget Unsure About Recovering Stolen Funds?
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the crypto exchange may not be able to fully freeze or recover all assets stolen in last week’s security breach, which resulted in the loss of approximately $388 million in digital assets.
Speaking about the incident, Chen pointed to the February 2025 Bybit hack as a reference point for recovery expectations. Attackers stole around $1.5 billion worth of Ether from Bybit, but only a portion of those funds were later frozen or recovered.
“I’m actually not very optimistic because after a year or so of Bybit’s hack, they’ve only [been able to freeze] about 3.5% of the total stolen funds,” Chen said. “That’s only the freezing. It’s not about recovery yet.”
The comparison highlights one of the biggest challenges in crypto security incidents: identifying stolen assets is often easier than recovering them. Once attackers move funds across multiple wallets, decentralized protocols and other services, tracing transactions does not necessarily translate into retrieving the assets.
Bitget has launched a bounty programme offering 5% of frozen funds and 5% of recovered funds to parties that help identify or recover stolen assets.
How Much Of The Bitget Hack Has Been Frozen?
Several companies have already taken steps to limit the movement of assets linked to the breach. NEAR Intents said it blocked more than $50 million in assets connected to the attack and froze approximately $500,000.
Chen also confirmed that stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle blacklisted a wallet linked to the exploit, freezing around $318,013 in USDT and USDC.
However, those actions represent only a small portion of the total loss. The majority of the stolen funds remain dependent on further investigation, cooperation from service providers and the ability to identify points where the attacker interacts with regulated platforms.
The incident adds to a growing list of major crypto security breaches where stolen funds became difficult to recover after leaving the original platform. Large-scale attacks have increasingly involved rapid asset movements, cross-chain transfers and attempts to avoid centralized points of control.
Investor Takeaway
The Bitget breach shows that blockchain transparency does not guarantee asset recovery. Exchanges can trace stolen funds, but freezing and retrieving those assets depends on cooperation from issuers, infrastructure providers and other market participants.
Who May Be Behind The Bitget Attack?
Chen said investigators are still examining who may be responsible for the breach. Shortly after the incident, she said North Korea-linked actors were among the possibilities being investigated, citing similarities with known attack patterns and infrastructure indicators.
She also said Bitget had not initially ruled out an internal compromise, although she later stated that the exchange’s preliminary investigation had ruled out that possibility.
“This is a very complicated matter that we need to do a lot of investigation and quite thoroughly [sic] investigation. It’s more based on our preliminary results of the investigation, we have ruled out that possibility,” Chen said.
Attributing crypto attacks remains difficult because attackers often use methods designed to hide their identity, including multiple wallets, privacy tools and infrastructure that may overlap with unrelated users.
What Happens Next For Bitget Users?
Bitget began restoring withdrawals in stages after temporarily suspending some services following the attack. Bitcoin withdrawals resumed first, followed by Ether withdrawals.
The exchange initially reported a loss of $352 million in digital assets before updating the figure to approximately $388 million after reviewing additional transfers linked to the incident.
The recovery effort will likely depend on whether investigators can identify where the stolen assets move next. Funds sent to centralized exchanges or platforms with compliance procedures may be easier to restrict, while assets moved through decentralized systems can be significantly harder to recover.
The breach also places renewed attention on exchange security practices, particularly around wallet management and controls protecting large pools of customer assets. For centralized exchanges, the ability to prevent attacks remains as important as the ability to respond after funds have already moved.
Bitget’s experience follows several high-profile crypto breaches in recent years, reinforcing the difficulty of recovering assets once attackers gain control of exchange-linked wallets.