$282M Crypto Theft in Trezor Impersonation Scam

A cryptocurrency investor lost more than $282 million in Bitcoin and Litecoin on January 10, 2026, after falling victim to a social engineering scam that tricked them into revealing their hardware wallet's recovery seed phrase. The theft, one of the largest individual crypto heists on record, was publicly detailed four days later by blockchain investigator ZachXBT.

The attack occurred around 11 p.m. UTC, when the perpetrator, posing as customer support for Trezor, a prominent hardware wallet provider with over two million users, convinced the victim to disclose the critical seed phrase. This gave the attacker immediate control over the wallet, which held 1,459 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $139 million at the time, and 2.05 million Litecoin, worth about $153 million. Trezor officials have not commented on the incident, but cybersecurity experts confirmed the impersonation tactic exploited trust in established brands.

Once in possession of the funds, the attacker swiftly moved to obscure the trail. Portions of the Bitcoin were bridged to Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin networks using Thorchain, a decentralized cross-chain protocol that facilitates transfers without centralized...