American musician Garrett Dutton, generally known as “G. Love,” misplaced his complete Bitcoin retirement fund after downloading a malicious app impersonating Ledger Dwell from Apple’s App Retailer and coming into his seed phrase.
Dutton instructed his 67,500 followers on X that he misplaced 5.9 Bitcoin — value roughly $420,000 — “right away” after spending about 10 years accumulating the cash to safe his retirement.
How the theft unfolded
Dutton stated he downloaded the malicious software program on his new Apple MacBook Neo however didn’t share which hyperlink led him there.
He wrote:
“I been within the crypto circus since 2017. In the present day 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 sleuth ZachXBT confirmed the theft, noting that Dutton’s Bitcoin had been despatched to deposit addresses linked to KuCoin throughout 9 transactions.
A recurring rip-off tactic
Faux Ledger app scams should not new.
In 2023, practically $600,000 value of Bitcoin was stolen from customers who downloaded a fraudulent Ledger Dwell software from Microsoft’s app retailer.
Microsoft acknowledged the malicious app had bypassed its assessment course of and eliminated it shortly after.
Cointelegraph was unable to search out the faux Ledger app on Apple’s App Retailer on the time of writing, and Apple didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Broader crypto fraud context
The incident comes as crypto-related fraud continues to rise.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation reported this week that People misplaced over $11 billion from crypto-related incidents in 2025, up from $9 billion the earlier 12 months.