Circle and Tether Freeze $318,000 Linked to Bitget Breach

Circle and Tether blacklisted a wallet linked to the Bitget exchange breach, freezing about $318,000 in USDC and USDT, while most of the affected assets were beyond the stablecoin issuers’ control. On-chain data showed the address held approximately 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT when Circle blocked it at 05:00 UTC on September 25. Tether later added the same address to its USDT blacklist. Bitget detected unauthorized transfers from some hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on September 24. The exchange first put affected assets at $351.6 million, then revised its estimate to about $387.5 million after identifying additional Zcash and TRON transfers. Bitget said the higher figure reflected a fuller accounting of the original breach, not further theft. The freeze applied only to the issuers’ own tokens. Blockchain trackers reported that other addresses linked to the exploiter held more than 63,000 ETH, which Circle and Tether cannot blacklist. The wallet targeted by the issuers also contained about 170 ETH, according to reports, and that balance remained outside the freeze. The available information does not establish how much of the breach has ultimately been recovered.