Terry KS MALAYSIA, 1 OCTOBER 2026 – Centralized cryptocurrency trading venue Bitget became the latest high-profile victim of digital asset exploitation after bad actors extracted roughly USD 350 million (MYR 1.43 billion) worth of tokens from the platform. The incident underscores persistent structural vulnerabilities across web3 infrastructure, following broader industry losses where attackers exfiltrated USD 2.9 billion (MYR 11.83 billion) across nearly 150 separate exploits over the previous calendar year.
Law enforcement authorities continue to warn that transnational criminal networks actively leverage decentralized assets to instantly move illicit capital across sovereign borders, bypassing traditional banking controls and regulatory checkpoints. The attack on Bitget ranks among several historical breaches that have altered security standards across centralized exchanges and decentralized finance protocols alike.
The largest single exchange breach on record took place in February 2025, when threat actors targeted Bybit to siphon USD 1.5 billion (MYR 6.12 billion) in ether tokens. Federal investigators attributed that operation to state-backed cyber units from North Korea, who quickly obfuscated the stolen funds by routing them across automated mixing services and disparate blockchain environments.
Prior major security failures include the August 2021 exploit of cross-chain protocol Poly Network, where attackers drained USD 610 million (MYR 2.49 billion) before eventually returning most assets following community pressure. In March 2022, sidechain network Ronin suffered a USD 540 million (MYR 2.20 billion) compromise impacting players of the Axie Infinity ecosystem. Regional Asian exchanges have faced similar historical impacts, including Tokyo-based Coincheck losing USD 530 million (MYR 2.16 billion) from hot wallet storage in January 2018, alongside the multi-year liquidation of Mt. Gox between 2011 and 2014 that saw nearly USD 500 million (MYR 2.04 billion) in bitcoin vanish.