ZachXBT: A whale hard wallet suffered a social engineering scam that resulted in losses exceeding $282 million. The attackers subsequently converted the stolen funds into Monero, causing the price of Monero to surge by over 60%.

According to Mars Finance, on January 17th, blockchain detective ZachXBT posted on social media that around 11 PM UTC on January 10th, 2026, a whale victim lost over $282 million worth of Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin (BTC) due to a social engineering scam targeting their hardware wallet. The attackers subsequently converted the stolen LTC and BTC into Monero (XMR) through multiple instant exchange platforms, causing a sharp rise in the price of Monero. Some BTC was also bridged to the Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin networks via Thorchain. BlockBeast Note: Social engineering scams refer to scams where attackers exploit human weaknesses, psychological manipulation, and trust-building techniques to trick victims into handing over sensitive information, assets, or permissions, rather than directly infiltrating systems through technical vulnerabilities.