Bitget Hit by $351.6 Million Hot Wallet Hack, Largest Crypto Heist of 2026
Bitget, one of the largest crypto exchanges, suffered a massive $351.6 million hack on its hot wallet, making it the largest cryptocurrency heist of 2026 so far.
The incident was first reported by Arkham Intelligence, which noted suspicious withdrawals of AVAX, BNB, ETH, and stablecoins from Bitget's hot wallet. The attacker then swapped these funds into ETH, further complicating efforts to track the stolen assets.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen confirmed that the hack was contained in a hot wallet, with cold wallets remaining unaffected. Chen stated that the attacker compromised a critical back-end system and spoofed transaction history before triggering withdrawal authorization without private key access.
In response, Bitget has suspended withdrawals temporarily as it conducts a thorough security review. Depositing and trading on the exchange remain operational, and user balances are secure. The exchange has also flagged the receiving address and is collaborating with law enforcement authorities and on-chain security firms to recover the stolen funds.
Bitget has assured users that they will cover the fund loss in full through its User Protection Fund, which currently holds over $464 million. Chen guaranteed 100% fund recovery for affected users, a commitment that some previous hacked DeFi protocols struggled to uphold.