Chainalysis Traces $387M Bitget Hack to North Korea Using AI
North Korea's crypto thefts passed $1 billion in 2026 after attackers drained $387 million from exchange Bitget.
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Key takeaways
- Chainalysis used custom AI to trace $387 million stolen from Bitget across four blockchains.
- The September 24 breach pushed North Korea's 2026 stolen crypto haul past $1 billion.
- Investigators raced against state-backed hackers who attempted to quickly launder assets.
North Korean hackers drained $387 million from exchange Bitget on September 24. That single breach pushed the regime's total stolen crypto haul above $1 billion for 2026 alone.
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis revealed it mapped the breach using its proprietary artificial intelligence. It turned into an outright sprint. Investigators relied on the AI model to plot fund movements in real time as the hackers hopped across four separate blockchains.
A Billion-Dollar Year
The late-September hit stands as one of the largest exchange exploits recorded this year. North Korea's state-backed cyber units had already amassed huge stolen reserves prior to the attack, but Bitget officially pushed their 2026 total past the ten-figure mark.
Tracking stolen capital across disparate networks traditionally means tedious, manual legwork. Chainalysis used automated intelligence instead, matching the attackers' tempo as they tried splitting and shuffling the funds across chains.
Why it matters
State-sponsored hacks keep growing in size, making raw response speed the primary line of defense. When thieves pull off a massive heist, they rely on cross-chain bridges to obscure the trail before targeted platforms can freeze off offending wallets. If AI analytics can track multi-chain hops as fast as hackers execute them, exchanges get a realistic window to block off exit points before the cash vanishes for good.
Source: Decrypt
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Daniel Okoro
Daniel tracks crypto regulation and policy across the US, EU and Asia, with a decade in financial journalism.
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