Ledger Warns Buyers After $87M May Vanish via Crypto Wallet Reseller

Ledger is probing possible theft of up to $87M from customers who bought wallets through reseller CryptoBilis. Buyers urged not to use their devices.

Crypto wallet maker Ledger is sounding the alarm. The company is investigating reports that customers in Southeast Asia lost money after buying its devices from an outside seller called CryptoBilis.

First, some basics. A hardware wallet (a small physical device, like a USB stick, that stores the secret keys to your crypto offline) is supposed to be one of the safest ways to hold digital money. But a device can be dangerous if it's tampered with *before* it reaches the buyer.

Here's the core worry: if someone secretly sets up a device with a seed phrase (a list of words that acts as the master password to unlock a wallet) that they already know, they can later drain the buyer's funds.

What Ledger is telling customers:

Don't set up your device if you bought from CryptoBilis in the last 90 days.
If you already did, move your crypto to a new Ledger device with a brand-new seed phrase.
Ledger has asked CryptoBilis to pause all sales and shipments.

How big are the losses? A blockchain investigator known as Specter traced suspicious wallets and estimated the damage. According to data they shared:

$86 million+ in total suspected theft
About $42 million in Ethereum (ETH)
About $17.6 million in Bitcoin (BTC)
About $16.5 million in USDT (a "stablecoin" designed to always equal $1)

Important caveat: Ledger has not confirmed this figure or the exact cause. No tampering has been proven yet, and it's unclear if every theft is linked to the reseller.

This follows a rough run for crypto security. Last month, exchange Bitget lost around $387 million in a hack tied to North Korean hackers, and other platforms have suffered huge breaches too.

The takeaway for beginners: always buy hardware wallets directly from the official maker, never use a seed phrase that came pre-set, and generate your own backup words. If something feels off, move your funds immediately.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://decrypt.co/380582/ledger-probes-87m-theft-crypto-wallet-reseller