🚨 Breaking update: 2 hours ago, MediaMarkt pulled all Ledger hardware wallets from its shelves
Europe’s largest electronics retailer, MediaMarktSaturn, announced that it has removed all Ledger devices (the little “USB stick” containing $BTC $ETH ) from more than 1,000 stores and its online shop across 11 countries as a precaution.
The incident came to light thanks to a German guy named Johannes: he bought a Ledger at each of two different stores, and when he opened them up, both had been tampered with—extra cables plus a hidden LTE cellular module (with an eSIM).
In plain English: the 24 recovery words you see on the screen during setup could be secretly photographed and sent out over a mobile network. You buy a hardware wallet and it comes with its own SIM card. That’s what you call a “physical backstab” 😅
Ledger also responded on X today, and handled it pretty well:
✅ The sales pause was agreed with MediaMarkt—not a falling-out
✅ No loss of funds has been detected in the German incident so far
✅ Ledger’s own systems and servers weren’t breached; the issue was limited to certain retail channels
Add another entry to the growing ledger: in the Southeast Asian CryptoBilis case, Bitquery raised its estimated losses for 10–12 to $102M across 324 wallets, and Tether has frozen $10M. The former Mt. Gox CEO also claimed today that a Ledger Flex bought at Singapore airport had been tampered with—unbelievable.
The silver lining (if you look hard enough): the retailer reacted quickly, Ledger didn’t pass the buck, and there are no confirmed losses so far. A lucky break in an otherwise bad situation.
Just remember this: only buy hardware wallets from the official website or official stores. Don’t touch a “90% new Ledger,” no matter how cheap it is.
Where do you keep your recovery phrase? Share in the comments and let’s see whose hiding spot is the most hardcore 😎
For informational purposes only; not investment advice
Europe’s largest electronics retailer, MediaMarktSaturn, announced that it has removed all Ledger devices (the little “USB stick” containing $BTC $ETH ) from more than 1,000 stores and its online shop across 11 countries as a precaution.
The incident came to light thanks to a German guy named Johannes: he bought a Ledger at each of two different stores, and when he opened them up, both had been tampered with—extra cables plus a hidden LTE cellular module (with an eSIM).
In plain English: the 24 recovery words you see on the screen during setup could be secretly photographed and sent out over a mobile network. You buy a hardware wallet and it comes with its own SIM card. That’s what you call a “physical backstab” 😅
Ledger also responded on X today, and handled it pretty well:
✅ The sales pause was agreed with MediaMarkt—not a falling-out
✅ No loss of funds has been detected in the German incident so far
✅ Ledger’s own systems and servers weren’t breached; the issue was limited to certain retail channels
Add another entry to the growing ledger: in the Southeast Asian CryptoBilis case, Bitquery raised its estimated losses for 10–12 to $102M across 324 wallets, and Tether has frozen $10M. The former Mt. Gox CEO also claimed today that a Ledger Flex bought at Singapore airport had been tampered with—unbelievable.
The silver lining (if you look hard enough): the retailer reacted quickly, Ledger didn’t pass the buck, and there are no confirmed losses so far. A lucky break in an otherwise bad situation.
Just remember this: only buy hardware wallets from the official website or official stores. Don’t touch a “90% new Ledger,” no matter how cheap it is.
Where do you keep your recovery phrase? Share in the comments and let’s see whose hiding spot is the most hardcore 😎
For informational purposes only; not investment advice