A crypto user lost more than $282 million in Bitcoin and Litecoin on Jan. 10, 2026, at about 11:00 pm UTC after being tricked into revealing a hardware wallet seed phrase, according to ZachXBT.
The attacker drained 2.05 million LTC (about $153 million) and 1,459 BTC (about $139 million). They immediately began converting large amounts into Monero through instant exchange services, briefly pushing up XMR’s price.
Large portions of the stolen Bitcoin were bridged across Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin using THORChain to move value without centralized exchanges. Online users slammed THORChain for enabling those cross-chain shifts.
Security firm ZeroShadow said it traced and flagged parts of the flow in real time, freezing roughly $700,000 within twenty minutes. The firm identified the address as, “belonging to an individual who had been tricked into sharing their seed phrase by an actor impersonating Trezor ‘Value Wallet’ support.”
ZachXBT rejected suggestions of state-backed involvement and wrote “It’s not North Korea.” A similar social engineering theft last year cost an elderly U.S. holder about $330 million.
