What should retail investors do after the exchange is stolen | By the way, see what exactly "insurance money" is protecting Exchanges are often the most panicked when they are hacked, not by the exchanges themselves, but by individual investors. Taking the Bitget hot wallet incident as an example. On September 24th, Bitget announced that some hot wallets have experienced unauthorized asset transfers, estimated to involve approximately $351.6 million. Although Bitget has stated that its user protection fund of over $464 million is sufficient to cover this loss, it is also important to note the following points one ️⃣ Remember two things 1. Only recognize official websites and verified official accounts. Any "compensation claim, urgent withdrawal, customer service link" will be treated as phishing. If the withdrawal has not been restored, do not re-enter the funds, do not add leverage or buy platform coins. two ️⃣ What exactly does the insurance mentioned by the exchange cover The "insurance" promoted by the exchange may not be the same thing: 1. User Protection Fund/SAFU: An emergency pool provided by the exchange in the event of platform theft or system level accidents. Most of it is the platform's own funds, which are compensated according to the terms and conditions, not bank deposit insurance. 2. Contract insurance fund: only supplements contracts to strengthen liquidation and reduce ADL. We won't compensate you for the stock being transferred by hackers. 3. Insurance for personal accounts: Not all exchanges and regions have it. Suggest checking the account insurance information of the exchange and region where you are located. 4. Proof of Reserve (PoR): It only indicates whether the assets at a certain moment have exceeded the user's liabilities, and is not a compensation commitment. three ️⃣ Public mechanism of each protection fund @Bitget: Protects funds of approximately 5500 BTC, officially claiming over $464 million, with verifiable addresses. The shortfall this time is about 351.6 million yuan, and the official statement states that it will be covered by the fund after evaluation and supplemented. This is currently the most directly related to the 'stolen' pool. @Binance SAFU: Approximately 15000 BTC, with a target of approximately 1.2 billion US dollars; The market value has fallen below about 800 million, and we promise to make up for it. @OKX：Shield+Security Fund。 Security Fund=Contract liquidation buffer; Shield=discretionary compensation for European users whose accounts have been hacked (up to approximately 100000-500000 euros). @Coinbase: up to $320 million, commercial crime insurance, shared by group customers. Including Custody and Prime, disclosed by fund regulatory authorities in August 2026. @HashKeyGroup: The licensed insurance in Hong Kong is third-party custody insurance under regulatory requirements, not self built protection funds like Binance/Bitget. The public statements include high coverage for hot money packages and partial coverage for cold money wallets (the group claimed to cover at least 50% of its custodial assets when renewing the insurance in 2025). four ️⃣ How to determine whether the exchange will provide real gold and silver compensation 1. Is it specified whether the coverage platform has been hacked to steal user assets, whether the amount exceeds the gap, and whether it can be verified on chain. 2. When will the withdrawal be restored, whether the card will be reviewed after restoration, the limit, and queuing. 3. In similar situations in history, most exchanges that have taken on responsibilities have compensated, such as Binance 2019 and Bybit 2025. However, the bankruptcy liquidation of the Mentougou incident has been delayed for more than ten years and has not been fully compensated yet. five ️⃣ How retail investors place cryptocurrencies 1. Top licensed exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase, and Hashkey; If you have the ability to manage hardware wallets, it is recommended to use hardware wallets to store most of your funds; 3. Diversify your funds and don't put all your eggs in one basket. Distributed management of different exchanges, cold wallets, and hot wallets.