Bitget's Pessimistic Stance on Recovering Hack Losses

Bitget's CEO Gracy Chen expressed uncertainty about recovering all $388 million in assets lost during the exchange's security breach last Thursday. The breach, one of the largest to affect the crypto industry this year, follows a similar hack on Bybit in February 2025 that resulted in losses of around $1.5 billion.

Chen cited the slow recovery efforts by Bybit, which froze and recovered only about $80 million out of the stolen funds over a year after the incident. She noted that even with freezing, Bitget has only managed to recover a small fraction of the stolen assets so far.

In response to the breach, Bitget launched a bounty program offering 5% of frozen funds and 5% for recovered assets. Other companies have also stepped in to help mitigate user losses, including NEAR Intents, which blocked over $50 million in assets tied to the attack and froze about $500,000.

The investigation into the breach is ongoing, with Chen stating that while North Korea may be a possible culprit based on IP addresses matching certain group's VPN choices, Bitget has not ruled out an inside job.