Ledger Halts Reseller Sales After $86 Million Crypto Drain Tied to Tampered Hardware Wallets

More than $86 million in cryptocurrency was reportedly drained from wallets linked to Ledger hardware devices, with on-chain investigator Specter estimating losses across 98 wallet addresses. The incident centers on customers in Southeast Asia who purchased Ledger devices through a reseller called CryptoBilis, raising immediate concerns that the devices may have been tampered with before reaching buyers.

Ledger responded by ordering CryptoBilis to pause all sales and shipments and issued warnings to recent buyers from that reseller. The total losses and the precise cause of the thefts have not been independently confirmed, and Ledger has said it is actively investigating. The $86.9 million figure comes from Specter's on-chain analysis and has not been verified by Ledger itself.

The incident is a serious warning for anyone who purchased a Ledger device through a third-party reseller recently. Security experts have long cautioned that hardware wallets bought outside official channels carry the risk of supply chain tampering, where devices can be pre-configured by bad actors to expose seed phrases or private keys.