$282 million in Bitcoin and Litecoin was stolen after Trezor pretended to support a scam

On August 2, a Bitcoin and Litecoin holder provided 12-word mnemonic words to attackers posing as Trezor supporters on January 10, 2026, resulting in the transfer of approximately $282 million in assets, including approximately $139 million in Bitcoin and $153 million in Litecoin. Blockchain forensics company ZeroShadow said the incident originated from a social engineering attack and was not a breach of wallet software or private key infrastructure. The stolen funds are split through the THORChain Cross-Chain Bridge within minutes and converted into Monero through an instant redemption service. The ZeroShadow surveillance team flagged and froze approximately $700,000 in funds within 20 minutes. Under the BIP39 standard, 12-word mnemonic words contain approximately 128 bits of entropy, and 24-word mnemonic words contain 256 bits of entropy. Chainalysis estimates that up to 23% of the bitcoins that have been mined, involving millions of BTC, are permanently inaccessible due to lost keys, including forgotten mnemonics, corrupted backup and failure to schedule inheritance plans.