ZachXBT says $330 million bitcoin theft victim is an 'elderly' person in US

Onchain investigator ZachXBT said on Wednesday that the victim of an alleged theft of $330 million worth of bitcoin is an "elderly" person in the U.S. who fell victim to a "social engineering theft."

The online sleuth first reported on Sunday that a "suspicious" transfer of around 3,520 BTC (worth roughly $330 million at the time) was made from the victim's wallet to another address before the stolen funds were then laundered through more than six exchanges and converted to Monero. The move triggered a 50% spike in XMR's price due to the size of swaps and thin liquidity on the platforms, The Block's Timmy Shen previously reported.

A social engineering theft is generally the result of a phishing scam in which the perpetrator uses malicious emails or links to obtain the information and credentials necessary to access an individual's accounts, or in this case, digital wallet.

"Onchain the BTC originated from *interesting* sources so would be curious how they originally acquired it," ZachXBT added Wednesday in a post to X.

The $330 million theft would rank as one of the largest instances of stolen crypto from an individual or entity. In February, hackers stole more than $1.4 billion in Ethereum from Bybit’s cold wallet. The attack has been billed as "the largest crypto theft of all time."

Before ZachXBT flagged the Bitcoin theft on Sunday, the crypto industry had suffered $92.5 million in losses so far this month, according to a report from web3 bug bounty and security services platform Immunefi.