In just one devastating moment on this Tuesday morning, a Bitcoin investor’s digital fortune vanished. What started as seemingly legitimate customer support calls ended with 783 Bitcoin — worth $91 million — disappearing into the digital shadows of cryptocurrency’s dark underbelly. This was revealed on X by ZachXBT, a pseudonymous blockchain sleuth known for exposing crypto scams and tracking stolen funds, helping recover hundreds of millions in digital assets.
The victim fell prey to a sophisticated social engineering attack orchestrated by scammers impersonating support representatives from both a cryptocurrency exchange and a hardware wallet provider, according to blockchain investigator ZachXBT. The stolen funds were transferred in a single transaction, making it one of the largest individual crypto heists of the year.
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Within 24 hours, the attackers began laundering the stolen Bitcoin through a Wasabi Wallet, a privacy-focused service designed to obscure transaction trails. The funds first landed in a clean Bitcoin wallet address — bc1qyxyk — before the criminals deployed sophisticated privacy features to conceal their tracks.
ZachXBT rules out involvement by North Korea’s notorious state-backed Lazarus Group, despite their history of major cryptocurrency thefts. The timing proved eerily coincidental, occurring exactly one year after the $243 million creditor theft that employed similar impersonation tactics. This theft happened in August 2024, when three scammers stole $243 million from a creditor using impersonation and remote-access tools. Two were later arrested in Los Angeles and Miami, while one remains at large.
Social engineering attacks have plagued the cryptocurrency industry, targeting everyone from seasoned investors to elderly users. These schemes typically involve criminals posing as customer support agents who trick victims into revealing private keys, passwords, or other sensitive wallet credentials.
Hardware wallet impersonation scams have become particularly prevalent. In April, criminals sent official-looking letters claiming to represent Ledger, requesting users’ secret recovery phrases under the guise of “critical security updates”. The same month, an elderly US citizen lost over $330 million in Bitcoin to similar tactics.
ZachXBT advises treating every unsolicited call or email as a “scam by default”, emphasizing the importance of independent verification before sharing any sensitive information.
This incident contributes to a staggering $2.1 billion stolen through crypto-related attacks in 2025’s first five months, according to blockchain security firm CertiK. The year’s largest breach involved crypto exchange Bybit, which lost $1.4 billion in February, demonstrating that even extensively audited platforms remain vulnerable to sophisticated attacks.
