A social engineering scam has resulted in the loss of over $330 million in BTC from an elderly investor based in the United States.
The stolen amount, totaling 3,520 BTC, was drained from a wallet that has been mainly inactive since 2017.
Details of The Exploit
According to findings shared by blockchain detective ZachXBT on April 28, following the theft, the stolen crypto was moved through at least six centralized exchanges before being converted into Monero (XMR), a privacy-focused digital currency that makes tracking transactions difficult.
Further, the large volume of the transaction caused the token’s price to spike by 50% due to limited liquidity.
The on-chain investigator later revealed that the victim was an elderly individual living in the United States. The theft took place over the weekend through a highly deceptive social engineering attack that led the target to give up access to their wallet unknowingly.
Such scams often use emails or phone calls to fraudulently extract personal or confidential information.
Hackers Identify Remains Unknown
The investigation into the theft remains ongoing, with ZachXBT actively tracking the situation. He previously noted that the stolen BTC originated from “interesting” sources, raising suspicions about how the funds were initially acquired.
Further, while some X users speculated that North Korea’s Lazarus Group may have been involved, the sleuth has ruled them out. He instead suggested that independent bad actors were the most likely culprits.
This isn’t the first major social engineering attack in the crypto space this year. In February, ZachXBT also uncovered a scheme that involved Coinbase users getting their crypto stolen through such exploits. Between December 2024 and January 2025, these individuals collectively lost $65 million in such incidents.
Overall, the crypto industry has been heavily hit in the first quarter of 2025. According to a recent report by blockchain security firm PeckShield, over $1.6 billion in digital assets were stolen through hacks during the period. Most of those losses came from the Bybit exploit, which accounted for more than 92% of the total, making the case one of the largest crypto thefts on record.
In January, bad actors made off with over $87 million, but February saw a surge in activity, with $1.53 billion stolen. Further incidents added another $126 million in losses, including a $50 million exploit targeting Infini, a $9.5 million hack on zkLend, and an $8.5 million breach at Ionic.
