North Korea Linked to $387M Bitget Hack as XRP Losses Mount
On September 24, 2026, cryptocurrency exchange Bitget was hacked, resulting in the loss of approximately $387.5 million from its hot and warm wallets.
The attack involved compromising a backend wallet system, allowing the attackers to spoof transaction data and trick Bitget's own authorization checks into approving withdrawals.
Chainalysis has attributed most of the stolen XRP to North Korea, with around 103 million XRP worth about $157 million being transferred out of the exchange. The funds were split into 23 distinct transfers, with XRP making up roughly 40.8% of everything taken in the first three hours.
Chainalysis's AI tools helped speed up the process of tracing the stolen funds, but only around 0.2% have been frozen by issuers or protocols so far.