Crypto News Today: Bitcoin Inflows, Chainlink's Volume Drops, Bitget Renewed USDT Withdrawal

Crypto exchange Bitget has begun reopening withdrawals in stages following the security breach that hit part of its wallet infrastructure in late September, according to a market roundup published by Analytics Insight.

Per that report, Bitget has restored withdrawals for bitcoin, ether and USDT after a security breach put at roughly $387.5 million. USDT withdrawals reopened on September 30 across four networks — Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Solana and Tron — based on the exchange's latest update. Bitget's published timetable places the remaining items in a final stage on October 2, covering other tokens, fiat withdrawal rails and peer-to-peer trading services. In other words, the restoration is sequenced rather than all at once, with the most widely used assets coming back first.

On the cause of the incident, Bitget has said that attackers exploited a flaw in a third-party security product and obtained high-level internal credentials, which were then used to send false withdrawal instructions to its wallet system. Roughly $388 million moved out of portions of the exchange's hot and warm wallets on September 24. Bitget has stated that its cold wallets and private keys were not compromised, that user balances remain unchanged, and that the financial impact is covered by its protection fund. The exchange says the underlying flaw has been patched, and that outside specialists are continuing to investigate while withdrawals are brought back online. Bitget has also emphasised that the $388 million figure refers to the original September 24 event and does not represent any additional loss occurring as withdrawals resume.

Blockchain analysts have continued to follow the movement of the stolen assets. Security firm SlowMist has reported that funds linked to the Bitget theft were routed through CoW Protocol and Chainflip and converted into bitcoin via cross-chain swaps, according to a separate market summary from CoinGabbar, which also noted suspicions that the attackers are linked to North Korea. CoinDesk has separately reported that a portion of the stolen assets — about $4 million worth — was moved into Zcash's shielded pool across three transfers, a venue where transaction senders, recipients and amounts are concealed, making the trail harder for investigators to follow.

The situation illustrates a recurring pattern in large exchange incidents: on-chain transparency allows researchers to track stolen funds in near real time, but attackers increasingly route proceeds through cross-chain bridges, decentralised trading protocols and privacy-preserving pools in an attempt to break that trail. It also highlights third-party software as an attack surface. In Bitget's account, the initial weakness was not in its own key management but in an external security vendor's product, which then enabled credential abuse inside the exchange's systems.

The news landed alongside a mixed broader market backdrop. The same Analytics Insight roundup reported that US spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded about $66.19 million in daily net inflows, led by BlackRock's IBIT with roughly $51.09 million, while Chainlink fell around 7% to about $14.37 as futures volume dropped sharply across Binance, OKX and Bybit. On the institutional side, the report noted that Morgan Stanley has set up an internal lab to test stablecoins and tokenised assets, and that crypto-backed lending has extended into the mortgage sector.

For users of any centralised venue, the practical takeaway from staged withdrawal restorations is procedural rather than predictive: access to specific assets and networks can be reinstated at different times, and official exchange communications are the authoritative source for what is live. Investigations into incidents of this size typically run for weeks or months, and figures reported in the immediate aftermath can be revised as forensic work progresses. Nothing about the event or the market data described here indicates any particular future price direction.

This is a news summary for general information only — not financial advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Always verify against the original source and do your own research before making a financial decision.