A crypto holder has lost $282&nbsp;million in bitcoin and litecoin after a scammer impersonating a customer support employee for the Trezor hardware wallet manufacturer successfully convinced them into revealing their <button class="define-target" id="seed-phrase">seed phrase</button>. After gaining access to the assets, they quickly swapped them to the Monero <button class="define-target" id="privacycoin">privacycoin</button>. The volume of assets was so large that the Monero price spiked as the scammer laundered the finds. The scammer also swapped assets using the THORChain project, which boasted on social media about the "World record speedrun. ⚡️" (presumably without realizing they were bragging about a thief using their project to launder money).<p>Around $700,000 of the stolen assets were frozen thanks to intervention by a security firm called ZeroShadow, although this represents only 0.2% of the total loss.</p>

Trezor support scam

Crypto holder loses $283&nbsp;million to scammer impersonating wallet support

A bug in a <button class="define-target" id="smart-contract">smart contract</button> belonging to the Ethereum-based Truebit project allowed an attacker to steal 8,535&nbsp;ETH (~$26.4&nbsp;million). The thief targeted one of the project's older contracts — deployed in 2021 — which contained a bug in which the price calculation to <button class="define-target" id="mint">mint</button> sufficiently large quantities of the protocol's TRU token would <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_overflow" target="_blank">overflow</a>, erroneously allowing people to mint large amounts of TRU for next to nothing. The exploiter took advantage of this by minting TRU and swapping it for ETH, ultimately causing the TRU token price to crash 99.9%. Another subsequent attack saw around $300,000 more drained from the project.<p>Truebit acknowledged the hack and urged users not to interact with the vulnerable smart contract.</p>

"Truebit token crashes 99.9% after hacker drains $26.6 million in ether"

"Truebit hit by $26m exploit as attackers increasingly target older DeFi protocols"

Truebit exploit

Truebit exploited for over $26&nbsp;million

Shortly after losing his campaign for re-election as mayor of New York City, Eric Adams announced he would be launching "NYC Token". He's pitched the project as a fundraising tool to fight "antisemitism" and "anti-Americanism", and as a project to "teach our children how to embrace the blockchain technology."<p>He launched the project on January 12, and buyers piled in in hopes of being early to a high-profile crypto token endorsed by a public figure. However, within hours, the team began pulling liquidity as the price peaked, extracting around $2.5&nbsp;million. As the price began to fall, the team added back around $1.5&nbsp;million, leaving around $1&nbsp;million unaccounted for.</p><p>Additionally, on-chain researchers observed at least one wallet that spent almost $750,000 to purchase around 1.5&nbsp;million $NYC around 10&nbsp;minutes <i>before</i> the token was publicly announced, leading to speculation around insider trading. However, because of the token price crash after the team began pulling liquidity, the apparent insider ultimately lost around $500,000.</p><p>People were quick to accuse Adams, or his unidentified crypto team, of rug-pulling buyers. Adams and the project's social media account have claimed that the team was simply moving or "rebalanc[ing]" liquidity, though they have not yet offered any explanation as to where the missing $1&nbsp;million went.</p>

"Pitching Crypto and Needling Mamdani: Adams’s Post-Mayoralty Takes Shape"

"Former 'bitcoin mayor' Eric Adams faces $3 million rugpull allegation after issuing NYC Token"

Event	Date	Amount More info	Recovered More info
Trezor support scam	January 10, 2026	$282,000,000	$700,000
Truebit exploit	January 8, 2026	$26,600,000
NYC Token crash	January 12, 2026	$1,000,000