Circle and Tether Freeze Stolen Stablecoins Amid Massive Bitget Hack
Circle and Tether have taken swift action to freeze stablecoins in a wallet linked to Thursday's massive $351.6 million Bitget hack.
The wallet, labeled 'Bitget Exploiter 8' on Etherscan, held around $318,000 worth of USDT and USDC when Circle blacklisted it at 05:00 UTC Friday. Tether has also banned the wallet, according to blockchain security firm MistTrack.
Despite this quick response from Circle and Tether, a significant portion of the stolen funds remains unfrozen, with over $63,000 in ETH still held by other exploiter addresses that no issuer can freeze.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen attributed the hack to attackers compromising a backend system in the exchange's wallet infrastructure, which allowed them to spoof transaction data and trigger authorization to move funds. She ruled out a private key compromise and noted that Bitget's user protection fund, holding over $464 million, covers the loss.