U.S. crypto holder loses $3 million in XRP after wallet compromise

A ￰0￱ cryptocurrency investor has lost over $3 million worth of XRP after accidentally exposing their funds through a crypto wallet mistake, with on-chain blockchain sleuth ZachXBT tracing the stolen coins to a laundering network tied to Southeast ￰1￱ reported on October 19 that around 1.2 million XRP ($3.05M) was drained from an Ellipal wallet belonging to the ￰2￱ funds were quickly moved across blockchains more than 120 times using a swap service called Bridgers (formerly SWFT), which relies on Binance liquidity. 6/ One lesson our industry needs to do better with is not causing confusion with products when you offer both custodial and non-custodial ￰3￱ XRP victim thought they were using the Ellipal cold wallet product when it was a hot ￰4￱ I see large Coinbase… ￰5￱ — ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 19, 2025 By October 15, the assets were consolidated on the Tron network and laundered through over-the-counter (OTC) brokers linked to Huione, a Cambodian financial group recently sanctioned by the ￰6￱ for facilitating scam and trafficking money flows.

“The victim thought they were using an Ellipal cold wallet, but had actually imported their recovery phrase into a hot wallet, which exposed the funds online,” ZachXBT ￰7￱ later confirmed this mix-up, stressing that its offline cold wallets remain ￰8￱ case highlights how user error, rather than a technical exploit, often leads to multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency ￰9￱ added that recovery is nearly impossible once funds are pushed into sanctioned OTC networks, and warned against predatory “crypto recovery” firms that charge victims large sums with little chance of success.