Bitcoiner loses $91M in social engineering attack: ZachXBT

A Bitcoiner lost $91 million in a single transaction due to a skilled social engineering attack on Tuesday. The funds were then transferred to a privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet, as reported by legendary blockchain sleuth ZachXBT.

The victim was deceived by scammers posing as crypto exchange and hardware wallet support, losing a staggering 783 BTC (worth $91 million at the time) at once. ZachXBT published details in an X post on Thursday.

Blockchain data shows that the robbery occurred on Tuesday at 11:06 UTC. The thief began laundering the loot a day later using Wasabi Wallet's privacy features to hide tracks, according to ZachXBT.

Social engineering attacks aim to trick people into disclosing confidential information such as private keys or passwords, allowing scammers to steal funds. This is widespread in the crypto industry, affecting everyone from experienced investors to grandmothers.

ZachXBT did not name suspects but dismissed theories pointing to the infamous state-backed North Korean group Lazarus. The attacker received the funds at a clean Bitcoin address ('bc1qyxyk') before using Wasabi to conceal tracks.

Ironically, this attack occurred exactly one year after the $243 million theft from Genesis creditor, adding a creepy coincidence.

Scammers actively impersonate hardware crypto wallet giants such as Ledger and Trezor using very sophisticated methods.

In late April, fake Ledger representatives sent out letters posing as the company and demanded secret recovery phrases under the pretext of a 'critical security update'. They threatened to restrict access to wallets if users did not comply — complete fraud.

That same month, an elderly US citizen lost over $330 million in Bitcoin in a similar social engineering attack, causing shock in the crypto world.

Crypto theft is thriving: over $2.1 billion was stolen in the first five months of 2025 alone. Most losses occurred due to wallet compromises and phishing attacks, as reported by blockchain security firm CertiK in June.

The largest incident was the exploitation of a vulnerability in crypto exchange Bybit for $1.4 billion in February, proving that even large audited platforms are not safe from this chaos.