Why Circle and Tether Froze Only 0.08% of Assets in Bitget Hack

Stablecoin giants Circle and Tether stepped in to freeze a wallet tied to the Bitget hack, and the total they caught was about $318,000 out of $387.5 million. Bitget is one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, and this is the biggest crypto theft of 2026 so far, so how the industry responds sets the template for the next one. Here’s why the freeze barely dented the loss, what changed in Circle’s behavior, and why that freeze power matters for anyone holding stablecoins.

What Happened at Bitget, in 60 Seconds

At 18:31 UTC on September 24, Bitget’s systems flagged unauthorized transfers from its hot and warm wallets. A hot wallet is an exchange wallet that stays connected to the internet so it can process withdrawals quickly. A cold wallet stays offline and is much harder to reach.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen explained on X that the attacker “compromised a critical backend system within our wallet infrastructure, used it to spoof transaction data, and triggered our authorization process to move funds out.” She said private keys weren’t stolen and cold wallets stayed safe.

In other words, the hackers didn’t break the vault. They forged the paperwork, and the vault opened on its own.

The loss was first put at $351.6 million, then revised to $387.5 million after investigators found Zcash and TRON transfers from the same incident. The biggest pieces: