Bitget Hack: Circle and Tether Freeze Stolen Funds, but Most Slip Away

Circle and Tether have taken action against the Bitget exchange hack by freezing a wallet tied to the breach. The freeze blocked roughly $318,000 in stablecoins, but the majority of the stolen funds remain out of reach.

The wallet, labeled 'Bitget Exploiter 8' on Etherscan, held around 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT, which were frozen by Circle at 05:00 UTC Friday. Tether followed suit hours later using its multisig wallet, adding the same address to USDT's blacklist.

The freeze was a small dent in one of the year's largest exchange breaches, with early estimates reaching $387 million. The attacker is suspected to be linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group, and Bitget has said it will cover losses from its $464 million protection fund.