XRP Leads Crypto Losses in Bitget Hack, Yet Prices Surge

When a high‑profile hack siphons more than $150 million from a centralized exchange, most traders brace for a sell‑off; yet XRP defied that expectation, posting a 16% weekly gain even as the breach unfolded.

On September 25, 2026, Bitget—a global CEX—reported that a hot wallet had been drained of 102,926,478 XRP, valued at roughly $157.4 million. The same incident also saw the loss of 31,890 ETH and 12,719 BNB. Finbold’s forensic analysis identified the breach as a coordinated hot‑wallet compromise, a scenario that typically raises immediate concerns about user fund safety.

Bitget’s CEO, Gracy Chen, quickly reassured customers, noting that the exchange’s User Protection Fund—stocked at over $464 million—covers the full amount of the loss. The fund, established to absorb unexpected shortfalls, is designed to protect retail and institutional users alike, and its adequacy in this case underscores a growing industry practice of pre‑funded insurance mechanisms.

Despite the headline‑grabbing theft, XRP’s market performance remained bullish. Over the past 24 hours, the token traded around $1.56, and its seven‑day price trajectory climbed more than 16%. Analysts attribute the resilience to heightened whale demand; Santiment data shows that addresses holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP added roughly 470 million tokens—about $724 million—to their balances in the five days following the hack.

Trading volume on Bitget contributed a modest 0.85% of XRP’s total reported $4.7 billion daily turnover, according to CoinMarketCap. This limited exposure suggests that the breach, while sizable in absolute terms, did not dominate the token’s broader liquidity landscape. The concentration of activity among large holders hints at a strategic accumulation rather than panic‑driven liquidation.

From an institutional perspective, the episode offers a mixed signal. On one hand, the swift activation of a protection fund reinforces confidence that major exchanges can mitigate operational risk, a factor that may encourage continued institutional allocation to assets like XRP. On the other hand, the breach re‑ignites scrutiny from regulators who are increasingly demanding transparent security protocols for custodial services. Asset managers monitoring crypto exposure are likely to weigh the trade‑off between exchange‑based liquidity and the perceived safety of decentralized alternatives.

The broader market reaction has been cautiously optimistic. While some investors temporarily shifted to lower‑risk assets, the overall crypto sentiment remained positive, buoyed by strong fundamentals across multiple chains. The incident also spotlights a longer‑term shift toward hybrid custody models, where on‑chain security is complemented by off‑chain insurance and real‑time monitoring. Such evolution could reshape how capital flows into digital assets, especially as institutional players seek both liquidity and robust risk mitigation.

In sum, the Bitget hack underscores the fragility of centralized infrastructure, yet XRP’s price resilience and the exchange’s funded safety net illustrate how the ecosystem is adapting. For traders, the episode reinforces the importance of diversification and vigilance, while for the industry, it signals that robust user protection mechanisms are becoming a prerequisite for sustained institutional confidence.