$282 Million in Bitcoin and Litecoin Stolen in Trezor Impersonation Support Scam
2026-08-02 09:39
Odaily Planet Daily News, January 10 - A Bitcoin and Litecoin holder provided a 12-word mnemonic phrase to attackers impersonating Trezor support personnel, resulting in the transfer of approximately $282 million in assets, including about $139 million in Bitcoin and $153 million in Litecoin.
Blockchain forensics firm ZeroShadow stated that the incident stemmed from a social engineering attack, not a compromise of wallet software or private key infrastructure. The stolen funds were split within minutes via the THORChain cross-chain bridge and converted into Monero through instant exchange services.
ZeroShadow's monitoring team flagged and froze approximately $700,000 in funds within 20 minutes. Under the BIP39 standard, a 12-word mnemonic phrase contains approximately 128 bits of entropy, while a 24-word mnemonic phrase contains 256 bits of entropy.
Chainalysis estimates that up to 23% of all mined Bitcoin is permanently inaccessible due to lost keys, involving millions of BTC, with causes including forgotten mnemonic phrases, damaged backups, and lack of inheritance planning.
Blockchain forensics firm ZeroShadow stated that the incident stemmed from a social engineering attack, not a compromise of wallet software or private key infrastructure. The stolen funds were split within minutes via the THORChain cross-chain bridge and converted into Monero through instant exchange services.
ZeroShadow's monitoring team flagged and froze approximately $700,000 in funds within 20 minutes. Under the BIP39 standard, a 12-word mnemonic phrase contains approximately 128 bits of entropy, while a 24-word mnemonic phrase contains 256 bits of entropy.
Chainalysis estimates that up to 23% of all mined Bitcoin is permanently inaccessible due to lost keys, involving millions of BTC, with causes including forgotten mnemonic phrases, damaged backups, and lack of inheritance planning.
