Bitget Hack Losses Climb to $387M: Here’s What Happened, and Why North Korea Is a Suspect

In brief

• Bitget confirmed a $387.5 million breach detected on September 24, after attackers spoofed transaction data to trigger legitimate-looking transfer approvals from hot and warm wallets, not by stealing private keys.
• The haul includes roughly 103 million XRP worth $157 million.
• CEO Gracy Chen says IP addresses and on-chain patterns match techniques used by North Korea's state-linked hackers.

Hackers stole roughly $387.5 million in crypto from Bitget yesterday in what is believed to be the biggest crypto hack of the year. The likely suspect is, as usual, North Korea—though that’s yet to be confirmed, and Bitget says law enforcement is now investigating.

Here’s what happened: Bitget's security systems detected unauthorized transfers moving out of some of its hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on September 24. Within about an hour, on-chain investigators had already tallied roughly $183 million in stablecoins, Ethereum, and other crypto assets sliding out of wallets tagged as belonging to the exchange.

By the time Bitget went public hours later to confirm the hack, total losses had grown to $351.6 million. The crypto exchange, one of the largest in the industry, updated that tally to $387.5 million today.