Bitget Wallet vs exchange: who signs your transfer

The Bitget Wallet and the Bitget exchange are two different products with two different custody models. The attack Bitget disclosed on September 24, 2026 hit the exchange's systems. Anyone holding crypto-assets in the Bitget Wallet was not automatically affected, because a different mechanism decides access there. That mechanism is precisely the point most users have never looked up: in the keyless version of the wallet, one of three key shares sits on a Bitget server, and without that share no signature comes about.

This text pulls the two apart. First the situation at the exchange, then the technology of the wallet, after that the consequences for custody, supervisory law and tax in Germany.

Bitget Wallet and Bitget exchange: two products, two custody models

The shared name misleads. The exchange is a centralised trading venue. You pay money in, the balances sit in a database held by the operator, and the private keys to the addresses where the coins actually sit are managed by the company. That is custody by a third party, custodial in the jargon. You hold a claim against the exchange, not immediate control over the coins.

The wallet works differently. It is an app that generates and keeps keys on your device, and it is therefore called self-custody. The wallet's product page frames this as a property of the product and cites the protection of balances through encryption and self-custody. It also advertises access to tokens on more than 130 blockchains and a protection fund of $300 million.