Bitget's CEO Says the $387.5M Hack Hurt Less Than Your Last Gas Fee Spikes 🛡️

Bitget chief executive Gracy Chen has publicly defended the exchange's solvency and customer retention after attackers drained approximately $387.5 million from the platform on September 24, a theft now attributed to North Korean actors by Chainalysis. In an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto recorded before withdrawals fully resumed, Chen confirmed that Bitget had replenished its protection fund above $300 million after using bitcoin from it to meet withdrawal demand, and that the company held more than $1 billion in capital outside the fund. Asked whether Bitget could absorb another several-hundred-million-dollar loss, she said it could, though she did not detail how much of that capital was immediately available.

Operations have returned to a phased normal state. Bitget said its phased reopening of withdrawals finished on October 2, and as of October 6 investigators continued tracing stolen assets, with the exchange's tracker listing approximately $1.07 million frozen, or about 0.28% of the loss. The total amount actually returned has not been disclosed. The unnamed third-party security vendors whose systems were compromised in the attack also remain unidentified publicly, and Chen said the investigation could take longer than Bybit's because of the more complicated set of systems involved.

On customer impact, Chen described the effect on daily operations and profitability as limited. She said a couple of institutional clients withdrew large sums when $BTC withdrawals reopened, but that many had since returned. She added that an hour after Ethereum withdrawals resumed, inflows exceeded outflows, and that strong inflows followed the resumption of USDT withdrawals. She provided no figures showing the scale of those deposits or how much withdrawn capital had come back.

Chen said a preliminary internal investigation found no evidence of insider involvement, but she could not explain how the attackers acquired enough knowledge of Bitget's systems to build a dedicated withdrawal tool. "I actually don't know. I wish I can ask them and get an answer there," she said. Her response leaves open the central question of how much access the attackers had before the theft occurred, and the investigation remains ongoing.