On-chain investigator – ZachXBT, on Friday revealed that someone lost assets in Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) amounting to $282 million USD (around 4.7 trillion Rupiah).
The massive loss is suspected to be due to a social engineering scam on a hardware wallet.
The stolen funds were converted to Monero (XMR), which is one of the reasons behind the massive price increase that started last week.
On-chain detectives added that most $BTC that was swiped was bridged to Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin via THORChain.
ZachXBT wrote to his 938 thousand followers on X:
"On January 10, 2026, at around 23:00 UTC, a victim lost LTC & BTC worth over $282 million due to a social engineering scam involving a hardware wallet. The attackers began converting the stolen LTC & BTC into Monero through several instant exchanges, causing the price of XMR to spike. BTC was also linked to Ethereum, Ripple, & Litecoin via Thorchain."
Additionally, ZachXBT also revealed that there are 3 addresses linked to the theft, 2 BTC addresses and 1 address $LTC
bc1qluxw46r55wf3dnk9c652vrt4duadm3hpuktf86
bc1qpsmh26ja0fzzf286zulmt9eywujc2pggj40wzm
ltc1qly43c2prj4c2e85dcspzpjd36jnapnenldnr70
The crypto community quickly picked up THORChain posts on X. Some members blamed the platform's social media team for boasting about possibilities and even 'celebrating' the crime.
Others outlined the dangers of social engineering scams, which even jeopardize funds in hardware wallets.
Such scams are usually carried out through fake accounts masquerading as attractive women who suddenly fall in love with the victim, even though they have never met.
At the time of the event and before the exchange to $XMR began, privacy coins were trading around $450.
XMR surged to new all-time highs in the following days, with the latest occurring on January 15 when it approached $800.
Since then, XMR has retraced significantly, possibly because the attackers released some of the proceeds, and is now below $630.