Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said she is “not very optimistic” about recovering much of the $387.5 million stolen in the Sept 24 hack, though the crypto exchange has pledged to cover customer losses regardless of recovery. Chen has promised to replenish its Protection Fund above $300 million within a week.
Security firm SlowMist, hired by Bitget to investigate, identified unauthorized access to a third-party product’s management platform using an internal employee identity and recovered a customized tool designed to interact with the wallet system’s withdrawal logic. It traced transfers across multiple blockchains over about two hours and 52 minutes, followed by attempts to manipulate withdrawal records and trigger additional Bitcoin withdrawals. SlowMist is still investigating how the attacker moved between affected systems.
Bitget’s balance fell about $600 million from the previous day to more than $6.7 billion as withdrawals reopened, blockchain analytics firm Arkham reported on Sept 29. Recovery efforts have frozen some stolen assets: NEAR Intents detected attempts to move more than $50 million through its system and froze roughly $503,000 during execution, while about $166,000 passed through, Aurora co-founder Alex Shevchenko said. Chen cautioned that freezing funds is not the same as recovering them, which requires further legal procedures.