North Korea Blamed for $387M Bitget Crypto Exchange Hack — Largest Theft of the Year

Crypto exchange Bitget detected unauthorized transfers draining roughly $387.5 million from its hot wallets beginning at 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026 — the largest cryptocurrency hack of 2026 to date. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the attackers did not steal private keys but instead breached a backend system inside Bitget's wallet infrastructure, spoofing transaction data to trick the exchange's own approval process into authorizing fraudulent payouts; the largest single component was roughly 103 million XRP worth about $157 million. Chen said IP addresses and on-chain laundering patterns are consistent with North Korean state-linked hacking operations, though some independent analysts disputed a direct Lazarus Group link. Elliptic assessed the theft as the largest single suspected DPRK crypto heist of 2026, pushing the regime's cumulative cryptocurrency haul for the year past $1 billion. Bitget said customer balances remain intact and covered by its $464M+ User Protection Fund, with withdrawals paused pending a security review.