Bitget Hack: $3.8M ZEC Sent to Zcash Privacy Pool

| decrypt.co
The Bitget hack has entered a more difficult recovery phase after attackers moved about 2,700 ZEC, worth roughly $3.8 million, into Zcash’s Ironwood shielded pool. The transfer represents about one-seventh of the ZEC linked to the $387.5 million Bitget hack. Shielded transactions hide wallet addresses and amounts, making the Bitget hack harder to trace and potentially limiting asset recovery. The attack began on 24 September after unauthorised transfers left Bitget hot wallets. Bitget said attackers compromised backend systems and manipulated transaction data rather than directly stealing private keys. The exchange has pledged to cover customer losses through its protection fund, so user balances are not expected to be affected. Investigators said the stolen assets were divided among new wallets and routed through THORChain, Across, Chainflip and FixedFloat. Near Intents said its SHIELD system rejected more than $50 million in suspicious swap requests, froze about $503,000 and allowed roughly $166,000 to pass through. On-chain data also showed about 2,390 ETH, worth around $6.3 million, converted into 75.2 BTC through THORChain. THORChain rejected Bitget’s request to block specific addresses, saying network halts are intended for protocol emergencies rather than selective fund freezes. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and Elliptic have linked the attack to North Korean hackers, although no government has confirmed the attribution. Bitget is offering a 5% bounty for frozen funds and another 5% for recovered assets.
Bearish
The immediate price impact is most negative for ZEC. The movement of a large stolen balance into Ironwood reinforces concerns that Zcash may be used to obscure illicit funds. Traders could respond with short-term selling, higher volatility and increased scrutiny of ZEC-related flows. The 2,700 ZEC transfer is material relative to the amount linked to the Bitget hack, although it is not necessarily an immediate market sale. ETH and BTC face limited direct price pressure because the reported conversions represent a small share of their broader markets. In the longer term, the incident could lead to tighter exchange screening, reduced liquidity on some venues and reputational pressure on privacy-focused assets. Bitget’s protection fund and the absence of an expected customer shortfall may contain broader market contagion, but they do not remove the negative signal for ZEC.