Bitget Restores $300M Protection Fund After Security Breach

Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange, has replenished its Protection Fund to over $300 million, restoring its stated minimum after a security breach drained its hot wallets. The fund, which was created in 2022 with 5,500 BTC and a stated minimum value of $300 million, sits apart from the reserves backing customer balances, providing a dedicated buffer for covering losses without reaching into customer accounts.

The exchange had committed to restoring the Protection Fund to at least $300 million within a week and announced on September 30 that the fund was back above that level, two days ahead of its target. However, the fund's exact value and composition remain unpublished, and it is below its pre-incident level of over $464 million.

Bitget's September 30 Proof of Reserves snapshot showed reserve ratios above 100% for all 19 assets included, but the exchange still hasn't published the promised root-cause analysis, and an independent forensic review is still expected to produce updated reserve information.

The exchange says the incident affected hot and warm wallet infrastructure, while cold wallets and private keys remained untouched. Its incident report says approximately $388 million moved across 12 wallet addresses, and the affected assets included XRP, ETH, USDT, ZEC, USDC, USDT0, XAUt, BNB, AVAX, and TRX across several networks.