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One of the biggest fraud cases of 2026 in the cryptocurrency world has come to light. On-chain researcher ZachXBT publicly announced a large-scale hardware wallet social engineering attack that took place on January 11, 2026.
According to information shared by ZachXBT, on January 11th at approximately 02:00 (UTC+3), a victim lost over $282 million worth of Bitcoin and Litecoin as a result of a social engineering attack carried out via a hardware wallet. The attacker converted the stolen assets to Monero through multiple “instant exchange” platforms in an attempt to cover their tracks.
Hacker’s Monero Purchase Causes $XMR Price to Rise
These intense conversion transactions caused a sharp and sudden surge in the price of Monero ($XMR) in a short period of time. According to analysts, transactions of this magnitude, carried out during times of limited market liquidity, can lead to instantaneous shocks in the $XMR price.
ZachXBT also stated that some of the stolen Bitcoins were moved to different networks via Thorchain. Accordingly, a portion of the $BTC was distributed by bridging to the Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin networks.
The disclosed wallet addresses reportedly contain a total of approximately 2.05 million LTC and 1,459 $BTC, revealing this to be one of the largest individual thefts in crypto history.
*This is not investment advice.