Hardware Wallet Scam Drains $282M; Monero Hits ATH as Hacker Launder Funds

The $282 Million Mistake

A single crypto whale lost over $282 million in Bitcoin and Litecoin late January 10 in the largest individual theft of 2026. On-chain sleuth ZachXBT identified the breach as a sophisticated “hardware wallet social engineering” attack. The victim was tricked into signing transactions or revealing credentials for a device typically considered impenetrable.

The sheer scale of the theft forced an immediate and violent liquidity shift in the privacy coin market. The attacker rapidly converted the stolen loot, comprising approximately 2.05 million LTC and 1,459 BTC, into Monero (XMR) via multiple instant exchanges. The aggressive buying pressure drove Monero to a new all-time high near $800, decoupling it from the broader market.

Laundering at Scale

This was not a slow drip. The perpetrator flooded order books to wash the funds instantly. While the bulk moved into privacy-shielded XMR, ZachXBT noted that portions of the Bitcoin were also bridged to Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin via THORChain, to obscure the trail.

Monero has since retraced to trade near $710, but the artificial pump highlights a critical liquidity constraint: when nine-figure sums exit transparent chains for privacy networks, price discovery breaks.

The incident marks the largest individual crypto theft of 2026 so far and surpassed the previous notable social engineering hack record of $243 million set in August 2024.

The Social Engineering Trend

The vector mirrors the August 2024 heist where a Genesis creditor lost $243 million to a trio of hackers known as Greavys, Wiz, and Box. In that case, the attackers spoofed Google and Gemini support calls to compromise two-factor authentication. The January 10 attack demonstrates that high-net-worth individuals remain the industry’s most lucrative bug bounties, regardless of their hardware security.