Tampered Wallet From Douyin Drains User’s $6.9 Million Crypto

[_act_]

Douyin is the Chinese version of Tiktok, which means the person bought the cold wallet through the platform. I do not know if it is a hardware wallet but I guess it can be a collectible. I do not know the reason some people are just buying a wallet in collectibles which has been a means scammers used in the past to scam people, or maybe it is a cheap hardware wallet.

What I know about it is that the wallet is very cheap, the private keys are known to the people that sold it at some point. The victim likely see it cheap and bought it and transferred $6.9 million worth of coins there. I do not know the coins the that were lost.

https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/news/tampered-wallet-from-douyin-drains-users-6-9-million-crypto

[Doan9269]

Its still a pity that at this stage we are in cryptocurrency, some are still not knowing what is being expected of them to do and not, how they could safely secure their asset from the kind of wallet to use, because we cant pretend not to be informed of some of these scams happening around the crypto space over time, which i expect that people should be learning form them, they are real and not fake, we don't have to watch until then it becomes our turn, its either a non custodial wallet or none, i cant risk my asset for any scammer to feast on.

[Smartvirus]

What I know about it is that the wallet is very cheap, the private keys are known to the people that sold it at some point. The victim likely see it cheap and bought it and transferred $6.9 million worth of coins there. I do not know the coins the that were lost.

https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/news/tampered-wallet-from-douyin-drains-users-6-9-million-crypto

I clearly don’t get it… why would someone be so clueless to buy a hardware wallet cheaply, only to transfer coins of over $6m into it for safe keep or whatever reason. Worst of all, you are buying from a source where the private key has already been exposed to them. It doesn’t make sense at all!
Having that amount should mean, you know what your security of it should be and you don’t get to go cheap on it, you don’t leave any room for vulnerability and just have to utilize best means to save them Bitcoins.

While go cheap with security on such an expensive portfolio!

[PX-Z]

.. The victim likely see it cheap and bought it and transferred $6.9 million worth of coins there. I do not know the coins the that were lost...

That's something a non-knowledgeable person about tampered hardware wallets will do. The moment that a knowledgeable person learns that it's cheaper than the SRP and a product from a non-affiliated store of the official store is very concerning. Then the taught that the owner can send worth millions of coins, also bought a cheap security for its funds? That's horrible.

[Nwada001]

Sometimes they say those who have money fail to take security measures very seriously, but those who manage to get a little fortune try as much as they can to protect that little they have.

Even to buy a hardware wallet from a distributor, I don't trust them. If it's not from the direct company, it should be treated with carefulness, as we are talking about money here, and from the story, the money was moved almost immediately after it was sent, which shows how closely it was being watched. Well, I still don't entirely buy the whole story, as it's not very clear to me.

[Coyster]

How could you want to store millions of dollars in crypto and you are trying to save a few dollars off of the hardware wallet you need to safely store your assets, that is totally crazy to me.

That said, buying a pre-owned hardware wallet is bad enough, but getting tricked into using a seed phrase that has already been generated on the device is beyond my understanding, was this is a newbie or was this crypto owner just ignorant not to reset the device and generate their own fresh seed phrase.

[khaled0111]

That’s a huge amount and I don’t understand or accept how a person who owns (used to own) such amount of money can make such a stupid mistake! Buying a cheap wallet online, most likely from a random seller, to store millions of dollars worth of crypto.
We all know that when buying a hardware wallet, you need to buy a well know on and you must buy it from their official stores or from their official resellers.
Someone who owns such amount (in crypto) is supposed to know this.

What a pity!

[Gozie51]

I wonder what that dude was thinking buying wallet online, not to talk of storing coins worth such millions of dollars. There are certainly things that can be bought by proxy or through social media not wallet that you should know it securities have been compromised. There are certain mistakes that are out of the world and this deserves to be listed as part of them. A newbie shouldn't not even act this way.

[Upgrade00]

You always run a risk when you do not buy a hardware wallet from the original source. There's always the risk that it's been tampered with before you received it. Always confirm that and if you know what you're doing get an additional passphrase to give you some extra security when setting up the wallet.

[Lucius]

Douyin is the Chinese version of Tiktok, which means the person bought the cold wallet through the platform. I do not know if it is a hardware wallet but I guess it can be a collectible. I do not know the reason some people are just buying a wallet in collectibles which has been a means scammers used in the past to scam people, or maybe it is a cheap hardware wallet.
What I know about it is that the wallet is very cheap, the private keys are known to the people that sold it at some point. The victim likely see it cheap and bought it and transferred $6.9 million worth of coins there. I do not know the coins the that were lost.

Everything is full of unknowns, so I wonder if there is any truth to all of this? The world is full of people who do stupid things, but if someone lost that much money this way, they should be given the Nobel Prize for the stupidest person of the year.

[rdluffy]

Douyin is the Chinese version of Tiktok, which means the person bought the cold wallet through the platform. I do not know if it is a hardware wallet but I guess it can be a collectible. I do not know the reason some people are just buying a wallet in collectibles which has been a means scammers used in the past to scam people, or maybe it is a cheap hardware wallet.
What I know about it is that the wallet is very cheap, the private keys are known to the people that sold it at some point. The victim likely see it cheap and bought it and transferred $6.9 million worth of coins there. I do not know the coins the that were lost.

Everything is full of unknowns, so I wonder if there is any truth to all of this? The world is full of people who do stupid things, but if someone lost that much money this way, they should be given the Nobel Prize for the stupidest person of the year.

I read the news and it may be true, but the source is very incomplete
It doesn't say what model of wallet was used, it doesn't have the tx and it doesn't even say if it was BTC or other coins
There's no way of knowing if it's true or not

to the OP, if there is more and more complete news about this possible incident, please post it here so we know better how it happened

[coyhasmon]

Douyin is the Chinese version of Tiktok, which means the person bought the cold wallet through the platform. I do not know if it is a hardware wallet but I guess it can be a collectible. I do not know the reason some people are just buying a wallet in collectibles which has been a means scammers used in the past to scam people, or maybe it is a cheap hardware wallet.
What I know about it is that the wallet is very cheap, the private keys are known to the people that sold it at some point. The victim likely see it cheap and bought it and transferred $6.9 million worth of coins there. I do not know the coins the that were lost.

Everything is full of unknowns, so I wonder if there is any truth to all of this? The world is full of people who do stupid things, but if someone lost that much money this way, they should be given the Nobel Prize for the stupidest person of the year.

I would not trust incomplete stories, but then again with AI even completely fabricated stories with many details are more common. We should not trust these things, and it can be for tax evasion reasons too. Fake losing a lot of money publicly, and then you don't have to pay taxes on it. More and more of these stories are fake these days.

[Coyster]

More and more of these stories are fake these days.

Even if this particular story is fabricated, the OP's message still doesn't lose its importance, the fact is people lose money in this way, both small and large amounts and it is not bad to remind newbies of this again, particularly in this section. Just as we repeat the message of "not your keys, not your coins", we can also repeat that people should buy their hardware wallet only directly from the manufacturer and that trying to save a few dollars off could be very costly.

[sokani]

I do not know the reason some people are just buying a wallet in collectibles which has been a means scammers used in the past to scam people, or maybe it is a cheap hardware wallet.

This is quite sad, and I think it happened as a result of ignorance. For someone that has that much, I want to believe spending more money to buy a good hardware device such as Trevor or the likes won't be a problem. However, even with his money, he didn't know that hardware device could be tempered with and he was supposed to buy directly from the manufacturer or authorized resellers. He paid a steep price for not being well informed.

[Mrbluntzy]

The first surprise that stoked me is how someone who has such a large volume of asset will not be aware of the risk factor of buying hardware wallet from unworthy source, what stops him from going to a direct shop that sale those kinds of gadgets and get a new hardware wallet. It's really true that lack of knowledge can cause a great damage to someone and that's what really happened to this victim. Thank you for sharing, many of us would learn from this story.

[DYING_S0UL]

Everything is full of unknowns, so I wonder if there is any truth to all of this? The world is full of people who do stupid things, but if someone lost that much money this way, they should be given the Nobel Prize for the stupidest person of the year.

Man this is just dumb way to loss literally everything. What a shame! Every crypto users should at least know the basics things like these things works! Buying a wallet in collectibles? Nah man! Then I rather not buy at all. Tbh, this whole story doesn't seemed realistic to me, I hope it isn't real. $6.9 mil is a heck lot of a money.. I would literally cry over $100  , imagine someone losing 6.9 mil.

[coyhasmon]

More and more of these stories are fake these days.

Even if this particular story is fabricated, the OP's message still doesn't lose its importance, the fact is people lose money in this way, both small and large amounts and it is not bad to remind newbies of this again, particularly in this section. Just as we repeat the message of "not your keys, not your coins", we can also repeat that people should buy their hardware wallet only directly from the manufacturer and that trying to save a few dollars off could be very costly.

The thing to remember is that this is not a new lesson. You will see this information everywhere. Most users simply don't want to educate themselves or choose to ignore warnings. There is nothing we can do about that.

Everything is full of unknowns, so I wonder if there is any truth to all of this? The world is full of people who do stupid things, but if someone lost that much money this way, they should be given the Nobel Prize for the stupidest person of the year.

Man this is just dumb way to loss literally everything. What a shame! Every crypto users should at least know the basics things like these things works! Buying a wallet in collectibles? Nah man! Then I rather not buy at all. Tbh, this whole story doesn't seemed realistic to me, I hope it isn't real. $6.9 mil is a heck lot of a money.. I would literally cry over $100  , imagine someone losing 6.9 mil.

As I already mentioned in this thread it is probably a fake story.

[Lucius]

Man this is just dumb way to loss literally everything. What a shame! Every crypto users should at least know the basics things like these things works! Buying a wallet in collectibles? Nah man! Then I rather not buy at all. Tbh, this whole story doesn't seemed realistic to me, I hope it isn't real. $6.9 mil is a heck lot of a money.. I would literally cry over $100  , imagine someone losing 6.9 mil.

Imagine that you have so much value in cryptocurrencies and then instead of buying or making an air-gapped wallet, you go looking for suspicious devices online and buy one just because it looks visually appealing. If there is any truth in this story, I wonder how this person managed to get so rich - but it seems to me that in this case, a saying that says something like "Easy come, easy go" would fit well.

[KiaKia]

Douyin is the Chinese version of Tiktok, which means the person bought the cold wallet through the platform. I do not know if it is a hardware wallet but I guess it can be a collectible. I do not know the reason some people are just buying a wallet in collectibles which has been a means scammers used in the past to scam people, or maybe it is a cheap hardware wallet.

What I know about it is that the wallet is very cheap, the private keys are known to the people that sold it at some point. The victim likely see it cheap and bought it and transferred $6.9 million worth of coins there. I do not know the coins the that were lost.

https://www.bitdegree.org/crypto/news/tampered-wallet-from-douyin-drains-users-6-9-million-crypto

I am very familiar with this incident through my friends in China, they told me first and I was late to create topic about it, the fact that I was able to hold is that China markets is now full of stores selling hardware wallet at discount prices.

When you tell people to be careful of cheap things they will look at you as a money waster. Normally hardware wallets are not supposed to be sold out of the company like electronics.

It should be purchased directly from the hardware wallet companies, I can bet with anybody that any hardware wallet that is sealed and sold by third party merchants or stores are 90% possible to be tampered already especially the likes of Ledger wallets.

I blame the victim, he clearly can spend up to $500 on a hardware wallet, he should have gone with the highest air gapped wallet and straight from the company direct not some side road store.

[rdluffy]

I am very familiar with this incident through my friends in China, they told me first and I was late to create topic about it, the fact that I was able to hold is that China markets is now full of stores selling hardware wallet at discount prices.

When you tell people to be careful of cheap things they will look at you as a money waster. Normally hardware wallets are not supposed to be sold out of the company like electronics.

It should be purchased directly from the hardware wallet companies, I can bet with anybody that any hardware wallet that is sealed and sold by third party merchants or stores are 90% possible to be tampered already especially the likes of Ledger wallets.

I blame the victim, he clearly can spend up to $500 on a hardware wallet, he should have gone with the highest air gapped wallet and straight from the company direct not some side road store.

Even with all the bans and prohibitions on cryptos in China, is it really that easy to find hardware wallets for sale there?
This is a question I have and it's hard to find reliable answers, especially from someone inside China, because the information we get here is that cryptos are banned there, so I suppose access to a hardware wallet isn't that easy...

Do you have a source for the news story about which device was used in this scam?