An individual lost 783 BTC (~$91 million) due to a social engineering attack, as reported by on-chain investigator ZachXBT.
On Aug 19, 2025 a victim fell for a social engineering scam and lost 783 BTC ($91M) after exchange and hardware wallet customer support were impersonated.
The stolen funds began to peel off and deposits to Wasabi were made by the threat actor.
Coincidentally this theft… pic.twitter.com/gglShNo2UC
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 21, 2025
According to him, the incident occurred on August 19 and coincided with the anniversary of the Genesis lender hack, which lost $243 million.
The perpetrators posed as representatives of a cryptocurrency exchange and hardware wallet support service. This enabled them to access the bitcoin investor’s personal data and transfer all funds from his balance in a single transaction.
The hacker began laundering the stolen funds through the privacy-focused Wasabi wallet the day after the theft. ZachXBT ruled out the involvement of the North Korean hacker group Lazarus but did not name specific suspects.
In response to a question on how to protect against such attacks, the on-chain investigator advised treating any incoming call or email as a potential scam by default.
Earlier, in an interview with ForkLog, Shard’s Director of Investigations Grigory Osipov noted that social engineering is currently the most common type of attack.
“That is, manipulating employees of crypto services or company workers to penetrate vulnerable systems. Thus, there is a kind of combination of social and traditional hacking methods,” he explained.
Back in May, scammers stole $45 million from Coinbase clients in a week. They posed as exchange support staff and coerced victims into giving access to accounts or transferring funds to external wallets.
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