Garrett Dutton, the American musician known as G. Love, says he lost about $420,000 after installing a malicious app that impersonated Ledger Live on Apple’s App Store and entering his wallet seed phrase. In a post on X, Dutton said his 5.9 bitcoin—saved over roughly a decade as a retirement fund—was gone “in an instant,” calling the day “really tough.”
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT traced the funds and reported they were moved in nine transactions to deposit addresses tied to the cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin. KuCoin issued a public response addressed to customers after the tracing was shared. Dutton said he downloaded the counterfeit software on a new Apple MacBook Neo but did not provide the link he used. He acknowledged the error, noting he’s been involved in crypto since 2017 and urged others to be vigilant about scams.
Cointelegraph was unable to locate the fake Ledger app on Apple’s App Store at the time of reporting and contacted Apple for comment. The episode highlights persistent social-engineering tactics in the crypto space: the U.S. FBI reported Americans lost more than $11 billion to crypto-related incidents in 2025, up from about $9 billion the previous year.
This is not the first time scammers have used fake Ledger apps. In 2023 nearly $600,000 in bitcoin was taken after victims downloaded a counterfeit Ledger Live client from Microsoft’s store; Microsoft later said that app had bypassed its review process and removed it.
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