Key facts
- Circle and Tether froze a total of approximately $318,000 in stablecoins tied to the Bitget hack.
- Circle blacklisted the wallet at 05:00 UTC Friday, with Tether following hours later.
- The frozen assets include 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT.
- The wallet also held about 170 ETH, which remains untouched.
- The Bitget hack is estimated to have drained roughly $387 million.
- Bitget's user protection fund holds over $464 million to cover losses.
Circle and Tether have frozen a wallet containing approximately $318,000 in stablecoins that was linked to the recent Bitget exchange hack. Circle blacklisted the address, identified as "Bitget Exploiter 8" on Etherscan, at 05:00 UTC on Friday, utilizing the freeze function within its USDC token contract. Hours later, Tether took a similar action via its multisig wallet, adding the address to its USDT blacklist.
The frozen assets consist of 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT. However, the wallet also held around 170 ETH, which remains untouched, highlighting the limitation that stablecoin issuers can only freeze their own tokens, not the underlying blockchain network like Ethereum.
This limitation allowed the attacker to convert a significant portion of the stolen assets into ETH before the stablecoin freezes could be implemented. Blockchain trackers indicate that other addresses linked to the exploiters still hold over 63,000 ETH that is beyond the issuers' control.
The Bitget hack, one of the largest exchange breaches this year, is estimated to have resulted in losses of approximately $387 million. Analysts have suggested North Korea's Lazarus Group may be responsible. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen stated that the attackers compromised a backend system, not private keys, and that the exchange's user protection fund, valued at over $464 million, will cover the losses.