Bitget customers withdrew more than 4,000 bitcoin within an hour of the cryptocurrency exchange reopening withdrawals, highlighting the immediate pressure on the platform after hackers stole $388 million in digital assets.
Withdrawals Resume in Phases
Bitget restarted customer withdrawals this week after temporarily freezing them when blockchain specialists detected funds leaving the exchange. According to Bitcoin Magazine, users quickly removed 4,098 bitcoin through 9,585 orders, based on figures released by Bitget chief executive Gracy Chen in a post on X.
The bitcoin withdrawn was valued at more than $334 million at the prices cited in the report. Bitget is reopening access in stages rather than restoring all withdrawals at once. Chen told Bloomberg Television that the pace of withdrawals had stabilized after the initial surge, saying most of the hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin withdrawals occurred during the first hour after services resumed.
The rapid outflow followed last week’s theft, in which attackers took approximately $388 million in cryptocurrency from the Victoria, Seychelles-based exchange. Bitget said the incident was contained and that no additional unauthorized transfers were possible.
How the Attack Happened
Chen said the stolen funds did not come from Bitget’s cold storage, which refers to crypto kept offline. Instead, she said attackers exploited vulnerabilities in products supplied by third parties, obtained internal credentials and used them to issue fraudulent withdrawal instructions that bypassed the exchange’s risk controls.
Bitget later said the method used in the incident was highly consistent with known tactics associated with North Korean hacker organizations. The source material describes government-linked North Korean attackers as longstanding targets of cryptocurrency exchanges and among the most sophisticated cybercriminal groups in the sector.
Bitget described the event as its first security incident of this nature in eight years. The company also said it was using its own funds to replenish its protection fund after the hack reduced its size. Bloomberg reported that the fund had fallen below $200 million, compared with $464 million before the attack.
Bitget’s Market Position and Bitcoin Picture
Bitget was ranked the sixth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, according to CoinGecko data cited in the report. It processed $811 million in transactions over the preceding 24 hours, and its customer base is concentrated mainly in Asia. The scale of the withdrawals therefore puts the incident in the context of a major trading venue rather than a small platform.
Moneyiar market data recorded Bitcoin at $83,834.36 at 09:48 on October 1, 2026. Bitcoin was up 0.35% over 24 hours and 0.92% over seven days. These figures are Moneyiar data at that time and represent market pricing after Bitget said withdrawals had stabilized.
The immediate focus for customers and the wider market is whether the phased withdrawal process continues without further unauthorized transfers. Bitget has said the incident remains contained, while the company works to restore access and rebuild its protection fund.
