Wallet

On January 20, 2026, the Cardano Foundation confirmed it had delegated 220 million ADA, valued at about $77 million, to 11 community-selected Delegated Representatives to strengthen governance resilience and diversity. The move follows a November 2025 proposal from key Cardano organizations to draw 70 million ADA from the community treasury to fund core infrastructure such as stablecoins, custody solutions, analytics, cross-chain bridges and pricing oracles.

Last week, CNBC vice president of news Jason Gewirtz received a phone call from a San Francisco area code by a man claiming to be Coinbase security, who alleged his account was under attack from Germany. The caller used realistic emails, personal data, and pressure tactics to push him into setting up a so-called Coinbase hard wallet and avoid changing passwords, but Gewirtz later confirmed via an AI chatbot and Coinbase that it was a phishing scam. Coinbase and recovery firm ZeroShadow warn that AI-powered impersonation schemes are rising sharply and emphasize that users should be wary of any request to move funds for "protection."

On the night of 10 January, an attacker used social engineering to drain over $282 million in BTC and LTC from a single holder. The haul moved through THORChain, into ETH and XRP, with 1,468.66 ETH (~$4.9 million) mixed via Tornado Cash, while Monero activity briefly spiked.

Security experts warn that "Evil Twin" public Wi-Fi clones can intercept credentials and expose crypto accounts. Last year, Australian Federal Police charged a man over fake airport Wi-Fi, and in January an X user reported a wallet drain after hotel Wi-Fi. Experts advise avoiding sensitive actions, using trusted VPNs, and confirming networks with venue staff.

According to Artemis, crypto-linked cards became the top driver of on-chain stablecoin activity in 2025, with monthly volumes rising from $100 million to over $1.5 billion. Total card payments reached $18 billion, close to $19 billion in P2P transfers, and Visa processed more than 90% of transactions.

A Satoshi-era wallet tagged by Arkham as "5K BTC OG" began selling on Dec. 4, 2024, according to Lookonchain and Arkham. It has offloaded 2,500 BTC for about $265 million at an average exit price of $106,164, and later moved 500 BTC to Binance valued at $47.77 million. The address still holds 2,500 BTC worth $237.5 million.

On 10 January 2026, an investor lost more than $282 million in Bitcoin and Litecoin in a social engineering scam tied to a fake Trezor support channel. The attackers allegedly obtained the victim's recovery seed phrase, drained 1,459 BTC and 2.05 million LTC, and then laundered funds via instant exchanges, Thorchain and Monero, while Monero's price jumped 36% in seven days.

According to Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador, nearly 80% of crypto projects that suffer a major hack never fully recover, largely due to operational paralysis and lost trust during incident response. Chainalysis data shows 2025 crypto hack losses hit $3.4 billion, with the $1.4 billion Bybit breach helping drive 69% of losses by early December.

On January 17, 2026, on-chain observers reported Bitcoin bots aggressively sweeping a wallet whose private key was derived from the coinbase txid of block 924,982. The address received two small BTC deposits totaling 0.00020305 BTC, which were rapidly spent through competing replace-by-fee transactions, leaving no remaining balance and directing nearly all funds to fees. The case highlights how bots precompute addresses from predictable keys and instantly drain any BTC sent to them, exposing the risks of weak or publicly known private key schemes.

On January 10, a high-value crypto wallet was compromised through a social engineering scheme, leading to the loss of more than $280 million in digital assets. The attacker rapidly converted large Litecoin and four-figure Bitcoin holdings via instant swaps, privacy coins such as Monero, and cross-chain bridges like THORChain, causing notable market volatility. Investigators have not linked the theft to any state-backed group, and the victim's identity remains undisclosed.