Circle and Tether Freeze Stablecoins Tied to Bitget Hack—But Most Funds Slip Away

What happened

Roughly seven hours later, Tether followed suit , with a signer confirming a transaction on its multisig wallet that added the same address to USDT's blacklist. The stablecoin (a digital token meant to hold a fixed value, usually one dollar) issuer blacklisted a wallet holding about $318,000 in USDT and USDC.

Most of the stolen funds sit in ether, which can't be frozen. In brief Circle and Tether froze a wallet tied to the Bitget hack, blacklisting roughly 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT (~$318,000) at the contract level; Circle acted at 05:00 UTC Friday, with Tether following via its multisig hours later.

The wallet's ~170 ETH stayed untouched—issuers can freeze their own tokens but not Ethereum—and trackers show other exploiter addresses still hold 63,000+ ETH beyond reach. It's a small dent in a breach pegged at roughly $387 million, with Lazarus Group a suspected culprit and Bitget's $464 million protection fund set to cover losses.

Blockchain data shows Circle blacklisted the address , labeled "Bitget Exploiter 8" on Etherscan, at 05:00 UTC Friday, using the built-in freeze function in its USDC token contract. Together the actions locked about 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT in place.