Bitget Hack: 103 Million XRP Stolen and Why Nobody Can Freeze It
Bitget lost over $350 million, including nearly 103 million XRP. Why XRP can't be frozen, why withdrawals were paused, and how to check where your XRP sits.
Key takeaways
- Bitget's hot and warm wallets lost $351.6 million on September 24, 2026, revised to $387.5 million the next day. The largest single asset taken was about 102.93 million XRP.
- XRP has no issuer, so nobody can freeze it on the ledger. Circle and Tether froze about $318,000 of the thief's stablecoins; no one could do the same for the XRP.
- During the incident, Bitget paused withdrawals for every customer while deposits and trading stayed open.
- If your exchange's XRP deposit screen shows a destination tag, your XRP sits in the exchange's shared wallet under its keys.
- Decide in advance where your XRP lives and how you would get in or out on a day like this, rather than deciding during the headline.
On Thursday, September 24, 2026, an attacker took more than $350 million out of Bitget’s wallets. The largest single asset taken was XRP: nearly 103 million of it. According to the video, nobody can freeze that XRP, and the only thing that got stopped that night was every other Bitget customer’s withdrawals.
That raises a question for anyone holding XRP on an exchange: if somebody hit pause tomorrow, could you get your XRP out? This article covers what happened, why XRP can’t be frozen, where the coins went, and how to check your own setup.
What happened in the Bitget hack?
Bitget’s systems caught unauthorized transfers going out of its hot wallets on Thursday evening. A hot wallet is the exchange’s till: it stays online so that when you press withdraw, coins can go straight out. In a clip shown in the video, Elliptic’s Tom Robinson explains that exchanges keep most funds in offline cold storage but must move some into hot wallets to meet withdrawals, and that movement is a point of risk.
About three hours after the alarm, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen published the figure herself:
- Thursday: $351.6 million taken from hot wallets and the “warm” wallets behind them. Chen said the offline cold wallets were fine, user funds were safe, and withdrawals were paused for everyone during checks.
- Friday: Bitget’s count rose to $387.5 million.
According to Lookonchain trackers cited in the video, XRP topped the list at about 102.93 million XRP, worth about $157 million. That was more than the Ethereum taken and more than all the dollar stablecoins combined.
According to the video, nobody stole the exchange’s keys. The attacker got into Bitget’s back end and fed it false details, and Bitget’s own approval process let the transfers through. The video compares it to forged slips at a bank counter.
Why can nobody freeze XRP?
XRP has no issuer. Most stablecoins work like vouchers: the company that created them can cancel them. XRP is closer to cash, with no company behind it to call. The XRP Ledger’s own documentation states that no one can freeze XRP.
That cut both ways in this case. By early Friday, Circle and Tether had frozen about $318,000 of the thief’s stablecoins. Nobody could do the same with the XRP.
The video addresses the argument against XRP head on: no issuer means no freeze, stolen XRP stays stolen, and regulators may lean on a coin that can’t be frozen. Former Ripple CTO David Schwartz discussed this at a Ripple event shown in the video. He said an idea going back to around 2014, called “regulatory domains,” would have let accounts opt into a jurisdiction whose authority could freeze assets. He noted “you can’t currently do that with XRP because it has no issuer,” and that the idea never found product-market fit because it did not solve a problem anyone had.
Issuers who do want freeze powers already have them. Ripple’s developers built a tool called Deep Freeze for tokens issued on the ledger, and according to the video it explicitly does not apply to XRP. A bank or stablecoin company can lock its own tokens, while XRP stays neutral. The video’s view is that this is the right design for holders.
Who got stuck when Bitget paused withdrawals?
Everybody except the thief. According to the video, Bitget’s support page said withdrawals were temporarily unavailable while deposits and trading stayed open. Customers could send coins in and trade them, but could not take them out.
That is how large exchanges are built. Customer coins sit in a handful of big wallets, the exchange holds the keys, and when something goes wrong the pause lands on customers. The video recalls November 2022, when FTX halted withdrawals.
“User funds are safe” means the exchange owes you your coins. The coins themselves sit in its wallet under its keys, and the XRP on your screen is a number in its system. The holders unaffected on Thursday night were the ones holding their own keys.
Ledger’s CEO made a similar point on Bloomberg after the hack, shown in the video: where there is money, there will be hackers, crypto is easy to steal because transactions are final, and if you leave coins on an exchange, it is on the exchange to make its security impenetrable.
Where did the stolen XRP go?
On Friday afternoon, Bitget posted the addresses its attacker used, and one is on the XRP Ledger. According to the video, that account was opened about half an hour after Bitget’s alarm, funded by a payment from a Bitget wallet, and received just under 103 million XRP in three payments.
Anyone can look it up. Find Bitget’s Friday post, copy the XRP address and paste it into an XRP Ledger explorer, a website that shows any account on the ledger. Every move from that address is public.
The thief still has a problem. As Tom Robinson explains in the video, stolen funds can be traced, and 103 million XRP is of little use until it becomes cash, which usually means going through an exchange or broker. The ledger won’t freeze the coins, but an exchange can lock them in its own system once they arrive. According to the video, Bitget offered 5% of anything frozen or recovered to whoever helps make that happen.
Is the Bitget protection fund enough?
Bitget said the loss would come out of its protection fund, which held about 5,500 Bitcoin, worth about $464 million when it posted. In an interview from the previous October shown in the video, Chen described the fund as about $850 million and noted that its value moves with Bitcoin’s price.
| Figure | Amount, per the video |
|---|---|
| Protection fund, previous October | About $850 million |
| Protection fund when Bitget posted | About 5,500 BTC, about $464 million |
| Loss reported Friday | $387.5 million |
By the video’s reading, the fund had nearly halved, and this one hack came to more than three-quarters of it. Bybit also said no customers would lose money after losing $1.5 billion in February 2025, and had to take loans to replenish the stolen Ethereum. A fund can fill the hole, but it doesn’t give you the withdraw button back. The exchange decides when that happens.
How to check where your XRP actually sits
The first step the video suggests takes under a minute:
- Open the app where your XRP is held.
- Go to Deposit XRP.
- If it shows an address and a destination tag (a long number underneath), your XRP is in the exchange’s shared wallet. The tag is how the exchange tells which coins are yours. This is known as a hosted account, and it is the same setup every Bitget customer had on Thursday night.
The video then poses three questions to settle before the next incident, not during it:
- Is your XRP in an exchange wallet with a tag, or on your own keys?
- Is it doing anything for you while you hold it?
- On a morning when a hack is all over the news, what is your plan for getting in or out?
Doing self-custody safely is a bigger job than one step, but knowing which setup you are in is where it starts.
What to watch next
The next thing to watch is how long Bitget takes to restore withdrawals fully. The other is the attacker’s XRP address. The day any of those coins lands on an exchange is the day it becomes clear which exchanges are willing to lock them.
Frequently asked questions
How much XRP was stolen in the Bitget hack?
According to trackers at Lookonchain cited in the video, about 102.93 million XRP, worth about $157 million at the time. That was more than the Ethereum and all the dollar stablecoins taken combined.
Why can't XRP be frozen?
XRP has no issuing company behind it. Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC can be frozen by Tether and Circle, but the XRP Ledger's own documentation says no one can freeze XRP.
Were Bitget customers' funds lost?
Bitget said user funds were safe, its offline cold wallets were unaffected and the loss would come out of its protection fund. Withdrawals were paused for all customers while it investigated.
What is Deep Freeze on the XRP Ledger?
Deep Freeze is a tool Ripple's developers built that lets issuers lock tokens they have issued on the XRP Ledger. According to the video, it does not apply to XRP, which has no issuer.
Education and commentary only, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile and you can lose money. Do your own research and speak to a qualified advisor before making investment decisions. Figures and quotes are as reported in the video on September 28, 2026 and may have changed since.
