One of the most significant fraud cases in the cryptocurrency world of 2026 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.