Circle (NYSE:CRCL) and Tether (CRYPTO: USDT) froze a wallet linked to Thursday’s $351.6 million Bitget hack, though the frozen amount covers only a small fraction of the total amount stolen.
What Got Frozen
CoinDesk reported Friday that Circle blacklisted the address, labeled “Bitget Exploiter 8” on Etherscan, at 05:00 UTC.
Blockchain security firm MistTrack confirmed Tether has since banned the same wallet, which holds:
- 170.47 ETH
- 218,023 USDT
- 99,990 USDC
That leaves roughly $318,000 in stablecoins stuck in place. The bigger problem is what can’t be frozen: MistTrack’s tracker shows other exploiter addresses still holding more than 63,000 ETH, and no stablecoin issuer has authority to freeze Ether itself.
Circle’s quick response here stands out against its handling of April’s $285 million Drift hack.
Critics including ZachXBT argued Circle moved too slowly to blacklist wallets back then, after an attacker moved $232 million in USDC from Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) to Ethereum using Circle’s own cross-chain transfer protocol.
How the Hack Happened
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said attackers compromised a backend system in the exchange’s wallet infrastructure, spoofed transaction data, and triggered the authorization process to move funds out.
She ruled out a private key compromise and said Bitget’s user protection fund, which holds over $464 million, covers the full loss.
Reuters reported Friday that Bitget paused customer withdrawals as a precaution, not because of any funding shortfall.
“Withdrawals remain temporarily suspended as a security precaution, not because of any shortfall in funds,” Chen told Reuters. Bitget says it serves more than 120 million users worldwide.
Which Networks Took the Hit
As Benzinga reported Friday, the hack affected several major networks and tokens:
| Affected Network | Ticker |
| Ethereum | (CRYPTO: ETH) |
| XRP Ledger | (CRYPTO: XRP) |
| Arbitrum | (CRYPTO: ARB) |
| Avalanche | (CRYPTO: AVAX) |
| Optimism | (CRYPTO: OP) |
| BNB Smart Chain | (CRYPTO: BNB) |
| Base | — |
Additional tokens affected include USDT and USDC (CRYPTO: USDC). Chen said Bitget’s on-chain cold wallets remain secure, and several affected chain foundations have already confirmed freezes on suspected hacker addresses.
Bitget Wallet remains independent and unaffected, though the company hasn’t given a fixed recovery timeline.
What Circle’s Chart Says
CRCL slides 5% Friday, breaking below the 20-day EMA at $89.66 within a broader descending channel following its breakout from a June-to-September rounding-bottom pattern that topped near $103.
RSI reads 49.88, just below its signal line, pointing to momentum that has cooled to neutral after the recent overbought push.
Key levels for CRCL:
- $84.88 to $85.02 — 50-day/100-day EMA confluence, key support test
Photo via Shutterstock
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