Fake crypto app leads to major loss for self-custody wallet user.
On-chain investigator traces stolen funds across multiple transactions
Photo Credit: Unsplash/rc.xyz NFT gallery
US musician Garret Dutton (G.Love) has claimed that he lost $420,000 (roughly Rs. 3.9 crore) worth of Bitcoin after he tried installing the self-custody crypto app called Ledger Live from the App Store. This app turned out to be malicious, as he had entered his seed phrase, which led to him losing 5.9 BTC worth $XXX (roughly Rs. XXX crore) instantly. Dutton also mentioned in his post on X that he was accumulating these Bitcoins to secure his retirement.
A blockchain sleuth, who goes by the name ZachXBT, replied to Gutton's post and said that he had traced his 5.9 BTC, and it was all laundered via KuCoin addresses, across nine transactions. ZachXBT also replied to one of the users, saying that “KuCoin has an ongoing problem with such illicit services abusing broker/personal accounts, which compliance does nothing to regulate.”
This is not the first time a fake Ledger App case has surfaced online. In 2023, ZachXBT posted about another similar case where a malicious application was present on Microsoft's app store, which led to a scam of approximately 16.8 BTC worth $588,000 (roughly Rs. 5.4 crore) at the time.
On-chain analysts spotted this in time as the users were tricked into thinking that they were accessing Ledger Live Web3, instead of Ledger Live, which is a user interface for Ledger hardware wallets to store cryptocurrency offline.
Data by DeFiLlama shows that crypto hacks and losses have recorded a total of 453 million (roughly Rs. 3,770 crore) in the first quarter of 2026, showing that the frequency of malicious crypto activities continues to be a threat in this landscape, and the case of Garret Dutton is just a reminder that on-chain security, better regulations for DeFi protocols and crypto education are key factors in curbing this problem.
This case also highlights the importance of a stronger platform oversight and user awareness, as even experienced investors can fall prey to such notorious bad actors in this complex crypto landscape.
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