Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the crypto exchange faces significant challenges in recovering assets from a security breach that resulted in $388 million in losses. Speaking to Cointelegraph, Chen expressed skepticism about the company's prospects, pointing to the February 2025 Bybit hack as a reference point.
In the Bybit incident, hackers stole approximately $1.5 billion worth of Ether, but the company managed to freeze and recover only $80 million combined. "I'm actually not very optimistic because after a year or so of Bybit's hack, they've only [been able to freeze] about 3.5% of the total stolen funds," Chen stated. "That's only the freezing. It's not about recovery yet."
Recovery Efforts Underway
Bitget has launched a bounty program offering 5% of frozen funds and 5% for recovered assets to incentivize recovery efforts. Several organizations have already taken action to limit losses.
The NEAR Intents team blocked more than $50 million in assets tied to the attack and froze approximately $500,000. Stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle blacklisted a wallet associated with the exploit, freezing $318,013 in USDT and USDC combined.
Breach Details and Attribution
Bitget initially reported the loss as $352 million in digital assets following a Thursday attack. Chen later updated the figure to $388 million following a more complete accounting of transfers.
Regarding the attack's origin, Chen said preliminary investigation results suggested North Korea may be responsible based on IP addresses and VPN patterns, though Bitget had not ruled out the possibility of an inside job. "This is a very complicated matter that we need to do a lot of investigation and quite thoroughly investigation," Chen said.
Bitget began resuming withdrawals in stages, starting with Bitcoin transactions on Monday and continuing with Ether on Tuesday.
