A crypto consumer has misplaced greater than $282 million price of Bitcoin and Litecoin in one of many largest social engineering assaults ever recorded within the crypto sector.
The theft occurred on Jan. 10, 2026, at round 11:00 pm UTC, after the sufferer was tricked into revealing their seed phrase linked to a {hardware} pockets, accordingly the blockchain investigator ZachXBT. The attacker gained full management of the pockets and rapidly moved the funds throughout a number of networks to obscure the path.
In line with ZachXBT, 2.05 million Litecoin (LTC), at present price $153 million, and 1,459 Bitcoin (BTC), now price round $139 million, have been drained. The attacker instantly started changing the stolen property into Monero (XMR) via a number of on the spot alternate providers, triggering a pointy spike in XMR’s value as nicely.
In parallel, massive parts of the Bitcoin have been bridged throughout Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP) and Litecoin utilizing THORChain, a transfer that allowed the attacker to shift worth between blockchains with out counting on centralized exchanges. The exercise reignited debate round how decentralized cross-chain infrastructure could be abused throughout large-scale thefts.
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$700K of stolen funds frozen
In a Friday put up on LinkedIn, safety agency ZeroShadow said it was capable of hint and flag elements of the stolen move in actual time after being alerted by blockchain monitoring groups. Inside roughly 20 minutes, about $700,000 price of funds have been reportedly frozen earlier than they may very well be totally swapped into privacy-focused property.
ZeroShadow claimed it recognized the sufferer as a Bitcoin tackle “belonging to a person who had been tricked into sharing their seed phrase by an actor impersonating Trezor “Worth Pockets” assist.”
ZachXBT additionally rejected claims that the assault is perhaps linked to a state-sponsored hacking group. “It is not North Korea,” heh wrote.
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Aged US Bitcoin holder loses $330 million
Final yr, an aged US particular person reportedly fell sufferer to a $330 million Bitcoin theft in one other main social engineering rip-off. The sufferer had held greater than 3,000 BTC since 2017 with little prior exercise, based on blockchain information.
After the funds have been moved, the attacker quickly laundered the Bitcoin utilizing peel chains and a number of on the spot exchanges, in the end swapping a lot of the stolen BTC into Monero to obscure its path.
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