Musician Lost 5.9 BTC via Fake Ledger App

American musician Garrett Dutton, known as "G. Love," lost 5.9 Bitcoin (about $420,000) after downloading a fake Ledger Live app from Apple's App Store. He typed in his seed phrase. The wallet was gone in seconds. Dutton had spent about 10 years stacking those coins as a retirement fund.

What happened

Dutton told his 67,500 X followers he installed the malicious app on a brand new MacBook Neo. The fake program looked identical to the real Ledger Live. After launch, it asked for a seed phrase to supposedly restore his wallet. He entered it and lost everything. "It happened in an instant," he wrote. He added it was his own fault for not checking more carefully.

Dutton did not say which link led him to the fake app. Cointelegraph could not find the application in the App Store at time of writing. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

ZachXBT tracked the money

Blockchain detective ZachXBT responded a few hours after Dutton's post. He showed that the 5.9 BTC moved through nine separate transactions to addresses linked to KuCoin. The exchange replied with a standard customer support message. No public confirmation of any asset freeze has appeared.

This scam has been around since 2023

Fake Ledger apps first surfaced in 2023 on Microsoft's store. Scammers placed a convincing copy of Ledger Live there and drained around $600,000 from multiple wallets before Microsoft pulled it down. The company admitted the app had slipped through its review process. The same trick then spread to other platforms. Apple's App Store is now a confirmed target.

Crypto fraud losses keep climbing

The FBI reported that Americans lost more than $11 billion to crypto fraud in 2025, up from $9 billion the previous year. That is a 22% jump in one year. Most of these schemes do not rely on software bugs. They target user mistakes - phishing links, fake apps, and social engineering.

What to check before installing any wallet app

• Official source only: Download Ledger Live exclusively from ledger.com, not from any app store.
• A real Ledger Live app will never ask for your seed phrase right after installation and without a physical device connected.
• Check the publisher name carefully in the store listing. Scammers often register app names that differ from the real thing by just one character.
• If anything feels off, disconnect from the internet immediately and contact official Ledger support before doing anything else.

One mistake erased a decade of discipline

Dutton did most things right for years. No Bitcoin sitting on exchanges, private keys under his own control. One moment of carelessness wiped out ten years of work. The crypto market grows, and so do the scams targeting it. Checking where an app actually comes from is just as important as keeping your keys safe.