Bitget Reopens Bitcoin Withdrawals, Starting Phased Restart After $388 Million Hack

Bitget reopened bitcoin withdrawals on Monday, the first step in bringing back a service the exchange has kept frozen since attackers took about $388 million from its hot and warm wallets on Sept. 24.

Withdrawals of BTC on the Bitcoin network began at 8:00 UTC “as scheduled,” Bitget said on X. The exchange said the flaw the attackers used “has been remediated” and that there were “no further unauthorized transfers identified following containment.”

Get Unchained’s crypto news in your inbox with the free Unchained Daily newsletter.

The rest of the platform comes back in stages, under a timetable Bitget published on its support site on Sept. 26. ETH withdrawals on Ethereum, BSC, Arbitrum, Base and Optimism are set for 8:00 UTC on Tuesday. USDT on Ethereum, BSC, Solana and Tron follows at the same hour on Wednesday. Every other token, along with fiat and P2P withdrawals, is slated for Oct. 2.

Bitget’s notice said the order “applies consistently across users without preference.” Trading and deposits have stayed open, and users don’t need to do anything before their assets unlock, according to the exchange.

CEO Gracy Chen hosted a live AMA on X at 7:30 UTC on Monday to take questions on the incident and what comes next.

The attackers did not need Bitget’s private keys. Chen said on X early on Sept. 25 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.” Mandiant and SlowMist are helping with the investigation.

The exchange raised its loss count on Sept. 25 to roughly $387.5 million, up from a first estimate of $351.6 million, after adding transfers on Zcash and TRON. Chen has said the attack matched techniques used by North Korea-linked hacking groups.

Bitget says its User Protection Fund, which holds about $464 million, will cover the losses in full. It is also offering a bounty of 5% of any stolen funds frozen or recovered through voluntary efforts.

Related Listen: Inside the Coldcard Hack That Drained Over $100 Million in Bitcoin: Uneasy Money

{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@id":"https:\/\/unchainedcrypto.com\/bitget-reopens-bitcoin-withdrawals-starting-phased-restart-after-388-million-hack\/#arve-youtube-cd-_g0jvf_e","@type":"VideoObject","embedURL":"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/cD-_G0Jvf_E?feature=oembed&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&autohide=1&playsinline=1&autoplay=0"}

The post Bitget Reopens Bitcoin Withdrawals, Starting Phased Restart After $388 Million Hack appeared first on Unchained.