ZachXBT Criticizes Hardware Wallets as "Garbage," Citing $282M Bitcoin Theft on January 10

According to reports by Wu Blockchain and The Defiant, on-chain investigator ZachXBT criticized hardware wallets as "complete garbage" in recent social media posts, saying he does not recommend using them and calling Ledger the worst among major providers. His comments followed a $282 million theft involving 2.05 million Litecoin and 1,459 Bitcoin on January 10, where the victim fell victim to a social-engineering scam; the attacker converted stolen funds into Monero and used Thorchain to move Bitcoin across networks.

ZachXBT's criticism of Ledger was partly shaped by the company's privacy controversies. In January, Bit2Me reported that Ledger suffered a data breach via external payment processor Global-e, exposing personal information including names, emails, phone numbers and physical addresses. Although users' private keys and funds were not directly compromised, such breaches enable criminals to target hardware wallet owners with tailored phishing attacks and social engineering.