A Bitcoin and Litecoin holder lost about $282 million after handing over a 12-word seed phrase to attackers posing as Trezor support on Jan. 10, according to Odaily. The stolen assets included roughly $139 million worth of Bitcoin and $153 million worth of Litecoin. Blockchain forensics firm ZeroShadow said the case was the result of a social engineering attack rather than a breach of wallet software or private key infrastructure. The firm said the funds were broken up within minutes through the THORChain cross-chain bridge and then converted into Monero using instant swap services. ZeroShadow also said its monitoring team flagged and froze about $700,000 within 20 minutes. The report added that under the BIP39 standard, a 12-word seed phrase contains about 128 bits of entropy, while a 24-word phrase contains 256 bits. Chainalysis has estimated that as much as 23% of mined Bitcoin may be permanently inaccessible because of lost keys, including cases involving forgotten seed phrases, damaged backups, and missing inheritance arrangements.
A holder of Bitcoin and Litecoin lost about $282 million on Jan. 10 after giving a 12-word seed phrase to attackers impersonating Trezor support, according to Odaily.
The stolen assets included about $139 million in Bitcoin and $153 million in Litecoin.
Blockchain forensics firm ZeroShadow said the theft stemmed from a social engineering attack, not a compromise of wallet software or private key infrastructure.
ZeroShadow said the stolen funds were split within minutes through the THORChain cross-chain bridge and converted into Monero through instant swap services. Its monitoring team flagged and froze about $700,000 within 20 minutes.
Under the BIP39 standard, a 12-word seed phrase contains about 128 bits of entropy, while a 24-word phrase contains 256 bits.
Chainalysis has estimated that as much as 23% of mined Bitcoin is permanently inaccessible because of lost keys, involving millions of BTC. The reasons cited include forgotten seed phrases, damaged backups, and the absence of inheritance planning.
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