Sealed Box, Spying Chip: A Ledger Wallet That Texts Your Seed to Strangers 🕵️

A hardware wallet marketed as tamper-proof has been found carrying a concealed spy circuit in a sealed package, according to former Mt. Gox chief Mark Karpelès. Karpelès, who ran the exchange that collapsed in 2014, posted on X on October 9, 2026, that his Ledger device arrived in shrink wrap from a Malaysia-based seller with an implant hidden behind the screen padding. The added board included an antenna and a small SIM capable of transmitting the wallet's 24-word recovery phrase, he said. "My spy-implanted ledger came from Malaysia, and had flawless shrink wrap. Even opening it, at first you don't see the implant which is cleverly hidden where the screen's padding is supposed to be," Karpelès wrote. The recovery phrase alone is sufficient to drain the wallet remotely.

The disclosure comes as Ledger investigates a separate set of reports tied to Malaysian reseller CryptoBilis, from which the company has requested it stop selling and shipping devices. On-chain investigators initially estimated losses above $86 million; a subsequent Bitquery analysis put the figure at $92.9 million across 311 wallets. Ledger has not confirmed those totals and has not established that tampered hardware caused the CryptoBilis losses. One victim reportedly lost 80 $BTC. Ledger's Genuine Check confirms that a device contains an authentic security chip but cannot detect every physical alteration around it, a limitation the company acknowledges in its own guidance.

Karpelès has said his device came from a different seller. Ledger directs customers to authorized resellers, including official storefronts on Amazon, Shopee and Lazada, and has published guidance for verifying device integrity.