Bitget Hack at $387 Million and Bitcoin Hits $87,000

The past week saw Bitcoin testing $87,000 and Bitget suffering a $387.5 million hack, alongside significant developments in cryptocurrency regulations in Russia.

Bitcoin successfully tested the $87,000 mark, while Bitget assessed its hack losses at $387.5 million. Additionally, Russia approved regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians, among other notable events from the past week.

Bitcoin Rallies Amid Altcoin Season Hints

Beginning the week around $81,000, Bitcoin surged to over $87,000 by the day's end on Monday.

Hourly BTC/USD chart from Binance. Source: TradingView.

On Binance, the local peak reached $87,378, driven by a significant influx into spot BTC ETFs, totaling nearly $1 billion during the trading session. Analysts noted signs of liquidity returning to the market and an increase in institutional participation.

Following a brief correction, Bitcoin made another attempt to hold above $87,000 but eventually fell back to around $84,000.

Throughout the week, Bitcoin gained over 5%, inching back toward $85,000. Several cryptocurrencies among the top ten by market capitalization outperformed Bitcoin.

Source: CoinMarketCap.

Zcash's price increased by 14%, while Solana and XRP saw gains of approximately 13% and 11%, respectively.

Outside the top ten, some assets experienced even more impressive increases. For instance, Bitcoin Cash, the largest Bitcoin fork, rose by 36%, and NEAR jumped by 40%.

During the week, Glassnode's Altcoin Cycle Signal indicator entered "altseason" mode. Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, highlighted that the volume of deposits in altcoins on exchanges reached its highest level since October 2025.

Another sign of potential volatility.

The number of Altcoin exchange deposits climbed yesterday to the highest since October 2025. pic.twitter.com/YuwpcjslNb
— Julio Moreno (@jjcmoreno) September 26, 2026

Spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $2.39 billion over the week, the highest figure since October 2025, coinciding with Bitcoin reaching its historic price peak above $126,000.

Source: SoSoValue.

The total assets under management in these products exceeded $108.4 billion.

Ethereum funds received $689.9 million during the week, rebounding from an outflow of $140 million in the prior period. The assets under management in Ethereum products approached $18 billion, a level not seen since January.

Source: SoSoValue.

The cryptocurrency fear and greed index hovered around 70 points, indicating moderately optimistic investor sentiment.

Source: Alternative.me.

The total market capitalization of digital assets increased from $2.75 trillion to $2.91 trillion. Bitcoin's dominance remained nearly unchanged at 58.6%, compared to 58.9% the previous week, despite altcoins' faster growth. Ethereum's share was 11.4% (11.5%).

Bitget Estimates Hack Losses at $387.5 Million

On September 24, Bitget's security systems detected unauthorized transfers from several of its hot wallets. Initially, the company estimated the affected assets at around $351.6 million.

“Our security team immediately took steps to contain the incident and protect affected systems,” stated Bitget CEO Gracie Chen.

She confirmed that client balances were unaffected by the attack and that the Bitget User Protection Fund would cover the consequences across the platform. According to the company's website, the fund held 5,500 BTC (approximately $464 million) at that time.

While trading and deposits continued on the exchange, withdrawals were temporarily halted for additional security checks.

The company sought assistance from independent experts at Mandiant and SlowMist.

Bitget also announced a reward program for industry participants who help recover the stolen funds, offering 5% of the returned assets. Subsequently, the exchange updated the estimated loss to $387.5 million.

We have launched a 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗕𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘆 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 to mobilize exchanges, blockchain projects, security researchers, investigators and the wider onchain community to assist with freezing and recovering affected assets.

Bounties will be calculated in proportion to…
— Bitget (@bitget) September 25, 2026

On September 26, the exchange announced a phased resumption of withdrawals.

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Developers Propose Mechanism for Private Bitcoin Transactions

At the Delving Bitcoin forum, a description of Shielded Bitcoin was published, a meta-protocol for private transfers on Bitcoin's first layer. This solution does not require soft forks, operators, or bridges.

The system relies on notes—records containing amounts and recipient data. When transferring, the user includes encrypted notes, a nullifier, and a compact zero-knowledge proof in a standard transaction.

The latter should confirm the existence of spent coins, the right to spend them, and the balance of incoming and outgoing amounts—without publicly disclosing the relationships between participants.

Indexers verify the proofs: they monitor blockchain publications, validate them, and mark used nullifiers to prevent double spending. According to the authors, indexers do not gain control over the funds. Any participant can independently verify the transaction history.

Control within the scheme remains with the owner of the spending key. Two additional keys, meant only for reading, allow viewing incoming transfers and the owner's outgoing transaction history without the ability to spend funds.

Bank of Russia Approves Rules for Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Custodians

The Bank of Russia has established rules for the entry of digital custodians, cryptocurrency exchanges, and information system operators into the market. The law will take effect on October 5.

Officially, such participants will only be able to operate after being included in relevant registries.

The new regulations outline qualification requirements for management bodies and specific officials of these companies, a list of documents for admission, and the approval procedure.

To be included in the registry, legal entities must submit information about their rights to exchange digital currencies, operate digital custodians, and conduct transaction settlements.

Mandatory information includes full and abbreviated names, OGRN, INN, address from the Unified State Register, website, phone number, email, and details in Russian about shareholders owning more than 10% of shares.

For individuals: full name, date and place of birth, citizenship, identification document details, SNILS, INN or its equivalent for non-residents, registration address, and actual residence address, as well as their share in the organization's charter capital.

A simplified admission process is also provided for existing players who will submit documents to obtain the status of digital custodian and cryptocurrency exchange. The regulations also cover the maintenance of registries, data updates, and the publication of information on the regulator's website.

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Claude Aided in Discovering a New Enzymatic System in Bacteriophage DNA

AI agents Claude from Anthropic helped uncover a new enzymatic system within the genomes of bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria.

This system was named array-associated reverse transcriptases (ART). Its repeating sequences bear resemblance to CRISPR arrays.

Anthropic researchers tasked Claude with finding intriguing examples of reverse transcriptases—enzymes that copy RNA into DNA. To accomplish this, AI agents autonomously explored genomic data covering approximately 1.9 billion protein clusters.

About 950 agents gathered over 200,000 reverse transcriptases in 21 hours, identified around 3,500 potentially new systems, and narrowed the selection to 20 most interesting candidates for further analysis.

According to Anthropic, a specialist could have taken several weeks to months to perform a similar task.

While studying one of the candidates, Claude noticed repeating DNA sequences near the gene of an unusual reverse transcriptase. The agent measured the intervals between repeats, compared the structure with known systems, and checked the scientific literature before passing the finding to researchers for verification.

Interestingly, the reverse transcriptase itself had already been described in previous studies of a giant bacteriophage. The new discovery was the recognition of a larger system: it includes the enzyme, an adjacent gene of unknown function, and a long array of evenly spaced repeating DNA segments.

Weekly Summary: Bitget Hack Losses at $387 Million and Bitcoin Tests $87,000