Bitget announced on Sept. 30 that its Protection Fund is back above $300 million following the financial fallout from a Sept. 24 security breach. The platform characterizes the fund as an extra layer of protection for users, kept entirely separate from the reserves that back user account balances.
According to the announcement, the fund handled approximately $388 million in losses stemming from the event, though user balances stayed correct and untouched. The exchange fulfilled a promise made on Sept. 28 to rebuild the fund to a minimum of $300 million within a week, reaching the target two days ahead of schedule.
The public statement leaves the exact amount of newly added capital unspecified, and Bitget notes on its fund page that the displayed values rely on midnight UTC pricing daily.
What the restored backstop covers
Per Bitget’s official fund guidelines, users are permitted to file claims if their accounts are compromised, or if assets are lost or stolen via platform-wide incidents that do not stem from their own personal actions or trading activity.
The company maintains the authority to review claims and examine impacted accounts and assets, with final decisions depending on the results of those investigations.
Simply being eligible to file a claim does not ensure that a specific loss will be reimbursed. Furthermore, the announced replenishment does not bypass this review procedure or imply that payouts have already been finalized.
Bitget explains that customer reserves support covered account balances, whereas the Protection Fund serves as a supplemental financial safety net. A separate reserve report indicates a total ratio of 131% across 19 covered assets—with every individual asset exceeding 100%—based on data captured at 09:00 UTC on Sept. 29.
An advisory published in 2023 by the PCAOB’s Office of the Investor Advocate pointed out that proof-of-reserves statements do not constitute audits, may fail to account for liabilities or borrowed holdings, and provide no guarantees regarding the future availability of assets.
Withdrawals remain subject to individual asset and network schedules. A service notice issued by Bitget on Sept. 30 confirmed that USDT withdrawals are active on Ethereum, BSC, Solana, and Tron, as outlined in a corresponding network availability update.
The company’s schedule sets the rollout for remaining cryptocurrencies, fiat, and peer-to-peer services on Oct. 2 at 08:00 UTC. Users waiting on those specific services are still operating on a different timeline than the fund restoration announced by Bitget.