Hardware-wallet social-engineering scam steals $282M in BTC and LTC; attacker swaps to Monero via THORChain, fueling XMR’s ATH then causing a post-ATH stall and volatility

first published 2026-01-17T12:15:07Z

A hardware-wallet social-engineering scam stole $282 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC), then the attacker converted the funds to Monero (XMR) using THORChain. The conversion drove XMR from $612.02 to $717.69 before it fell to $623.05 (an 11.41% 24h decline); trading volume for XMR dropped 29.99% to $255.75 million. The incident highlights use of DEX cross-chain swaps and privacy coins that complicate tracking and recovery. Monero jumped into the top 15 assets (ranked #12 with a $11.54B market cap) and drew trader attention.

AI Analysis

Fact: $282M in BTC and LTC were stolen via a hardware-wallet social-engineering scam and converted to Monero using THORChain. Fact: XMR spiked from $612.02 to $717.69 then fell to $623.05 (11.41% 24h decline) and XMR volume dropped 29.99% to $255.75M. Fact: THORChain cross-chain swaps and privacy coin use make tracking/recovery harder; Monero rose to #12 with an $11.54B market cap. These concrete figures explain negative sentiment (theft and tracking difficulty) and moderate market impact (large conversion drove short-term XMR volatility).

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