Ten years of cautious saving worn out in a single afternoon. That’s what occurred to Garrett Dutton, the American musician generally known as G. Love, who misplaced 5.9 Bitcoin — value roughly $420,000 — after a malicious app tricked him into making a gift of the one factor he was by no means presupposed to share.
A Retirement Fund Constructed Over Years
Dutton had been stacking Bitcoin since 2017, treating it as a long-term retirement plan. On Saturday, he posted concerning the loss on X, telling his 67,500 followers the cash had vanished right away.
Garrett Dutton, aka G Love. Supply: The Ark
He mentioned he downloaded what gave the impression to be the Ledger Reside app — a self-custody crypto utility — from Apple’s App Retailer on a brand new MacBook. The app was pretend. As soon as inside, it prompted him to enter his seed phrase. He did. The cash was gone.
“I been within the crypto circus since 2017,” he wrote in a follow-up publish. “Right this moment they caught me off guard. It was my very own rattling fault for not being extra diligent. However let it function a warning. There’s so many scams.”
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT traced the stolen funds shortly after, discovering that the Bitcoin had been moved to deposit addresses tied to the crypto alternate KuCoin throughout 9 separate transactions.
I had a extremely robust day immediately I misplaced my retirement fund in a hack/Rip-off after I switched my @Ledger over to my new pc and accidentally downloaded a malicious ledger app from the @Apple retailer. All my BTC gone right away.
— G. Love (@glove) April 11, 2026
KuCoin responded to ZachXBT’s publish with a press release sometimes addressed to its prospects. Dutton didn’t disclose which hyperlink led him to the fraudulent obtain.
Picture: Da-kuk through Getty Pictures
Pretend Pockets Apps Have Fooled Individuals Earlier than
This isn’t the primary time scammers have pulled off this precise transfer. Again in 2023, a counterfeit model of the Ledger Reside app appeared on Microsoft’s app retailer and drained almost $600,000 from a number of customers earlier than it was eliminated.
Hello I traced out your 5.92 BTC stolen and it was all laundered through @kucoincom deposit addresses within the following transactions:
6f5c8eb6b01774626f33527e0cb03c0d1860447acacd6079e69bf41b459bcf1f
9ee1288f941b2c3775ebd125eefeebdc713aa160bf2cf9d18661fd07f84ce891…— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) April 12, 2026
Microsoft later acknowledged the app had made it via its evaluate course of undetected. Apple had not responded to a request for remark.
BTCUSD at present buying and selling at $70,879. Chart: TradingView
Bitcoin Losses Throughout The Nation Hold Rising
Dutton’s case is one piece of a a lot bigger drawback. In keeping with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Individuals misplaced greater than $11 billion to crypto-related fraud in 2025 — up from $9 billion the yr earlier than.
Seed phrases are the grasp keys of self-custody crypto wallets. No authentic pockets utility asks customers to sort one right into a display screen. That’s the road Dutton crossed with out realizing it — and by the point he did, there was nothing left to recuperate.
Featured picture from Pexels, chart from TradingView
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