Bitget says its operations are gradually returning to normal after a security breach that caused $388 million in user losses.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said withdrawals for all tokens will resume on Friday. The exchange has already restored access to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and USDt (USDT). As part of the recovery effort, Bitget said its Protection Fund has reached $309 million.
Protection fund cited in recovery effort
According to the company, the Protection Fund was first set up in January 2022 with 5,500 BTC. It was intended to reimburse users for potential losses that were "not a result of any misconduct from the user or the platform itself," a scope that could include some security breaches. Bitget said the funds were available for immediate deployment when needed.
"The Protection Fund was created for moments like this and absorbed the financial impact of the incident," Chen said.
Company has not ruled out possible culprits
Speaking to Cointelegraph this week, Chen said Bitget still has not ruled out certain parties that may have been responsible for the $388 million attack. Those possibilities include an inside job or North Korean hackers.
Bitget has launched a bounty program in response, offering 5% of the frozen funds and 5% of any recovered funds.
ZachXBT tracks movement of stolen ZEC
On Wednesday, blockchain investigator ZachXBT said wallets tied to the Bitget hack moved about $3.8 million in Zcash (ZEC) into the network's Ironwood pool.
Those transactions accounted for about 14% of the 18,917 ZEC stolen in the attack.
A related report said NEAR Intents had blocked $50 million tied to the Bitget hackers.