Crypto exchange Bitget, often called the world’s largest UEX (Universal Exchange), has stopped allowing customer withdrawals following the theft of crypto worth approximately USD 351.6 million in a hack.
The company, however, said that all user funds were safe.
“Bitget had noticed unauthorised transfers from some of its wallets on Thursday, and it temporarily suspended customer withdrawals,” Gracy Chen, CEO of the Seychelles-based company, said in a statement posted on the popular micro-blogging platform X.
Chen further added that the loss was covered by Bitget’s own funds.
“Withdrawals remain temporarily suspended as a security precaution, not because of any shortfall in funds,” Chen told Reuters last Friday.
Bitget has well over 120 million users, making the venture one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
When it comes to hackers targetting crypto websites and exchanges, Bitget is not alone. In 2025, Bybit had USD 1.5 billion stolen in a similar heist, which the FBI attributed to North Korean hackers.
As per the American and global law enforcement authorities, criminals, after stealing the crypto, often transfer the virtual currency across borders without using the mainstream financial system.
Last year, attackers stole USD 2.9 billion worth of crypto across nearly 150 different attacks, according to researchers at TRM Labs.
The incident involving Bybit still stands as the largest crypto theft so far.
However, crypto threats have been going on unabated since 2011. From 2011 to 2014, Mt Gox, an exchange in Tokyo, then the world’s biggest, witnessed virtual currency theft close to USD 500 million.
Mt. Gox, once known for handling 80% of the world’s bitcoin trade, filed for bankruptcy in early 2014 after the hack was revealed.
The mishap resulted in 24,000 customers losing access to their funds.
Tokyo hit the headline again in January 2018, as hackers stole cryptocurrency then worth around USD 530 million from exchange Coincheck. The thieves attacked one of Coincheck’s “hot wallets”—a digital folder stored online—to drain the funds, drawing attention to security at exchanges.
South Korea’s intelligence agency blamed the possible involvement of a North Korean hacking group behind the heist.
In August 2021, hackers stole around USD 610 million from Poly Network, a platform known for facilitating peer-to-peer token transactions. The hackers behind the heist later returned nearly all of the stolen funds.
The Poly Network hack also highlighted vulnerabilities in the decentralised finance (DeFi) sector, where users lend, borrow and save in digital tokens, bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of finance such as banks and exchanges.
In March 2022, cybercriminals stole cryptocurrency worth around USD 540 million from a blockchain project linked to the popular online game Axie Infinity.
Ronin, a network that allows the transfer of crypto coins across different blockchains, said that hackers stole some 173,600 Ether tokens and 25.5 million USD Coin tokens.