Nearly $352mn has been stolen from crypto exchange Bitget in the single biggest digital assets theft this year, using methods “highly consistent” with North Korean hackers. Gracy Chen, Bitget chief executive, said the exchange’s systems detected the theft at 6.31pm GMT on Thursday and that customer withdrawals were frozen. She confirmed that stolen funds would be covered by Bitget’s User Protection Fund, which holds over $464mn, and withdrawals would resume once safety was verified.

The attack follows a pattern of state-directed financial operations by North Korea, which TRM Labs described as the largest source of stolen value this year. Chen noted that IP behaviour and on-chain analysis aligned with known North Korean hacker organisations. In February 2025, North Korean hackers drained $1.5bn from Bybit, the largest single crypto hack ever.

Before the Bitget hack, $1.73bn had been stolen across 333 incidents at crypto groups in 2026. The hackers stole tokens including ether, XRP, USDC, and USDT from blockchains such as Ethereum, XRP Ledger, and Base. Bitget is working with law enforcement and blockchain security groups, some of which have already frozen hacker wallets. The attackers compromised a critical back-end system, spoofed transaction data, and triggered unauthorised fund transfers.