Circle and Tether Freeze $318,000 from Bitget Hack as Loss Rises to $387.5 Million

Circle and Tether have frozen approximately $318,000 in stablecoins held by a wallet linked to the Bitget security breach.

The blacklisting of an Ethereum address labeled 'Bitget Exploiter 8' immobilized only a fraction of the stolen funds, which now stand at around $387.5 million.

USDC and USDT differ from native cryptocurrencies such as Ether because their issuers retain administrative controls that can prevent specified addresses from transferring the tokens.

The Bitget hack occurred on September 24, when approximately $351.6 million was transferred from portions of its hot and warm wallet infrastructure after unauthorized activity was detected at 18:31 UTC.

CEO Gracy Chen said the attackers compromised a backend component in Bitget's wallet infrastructure, manipulated transaction information, and caused the exchange's authorization system to approve fraudulent transfers.