Musician G. Love Loses $420,000 in Bitcoin to App Store Scam

Garrett Dutton, known professionally as G. Love, has reported the loss of 5.9 Bitcoin, valued at approximately $420,000, following a phishing attack. The loss occurred after the musician downloaded a malicious application impersonating the Ledger Live self-custody wallet from the Apple App Store and subsequently entered his seed phrase. The incident underscores the persistent risk of spoof applications bypassing the review processes of major tech platforms. Dutton, who had accumulated the assets over a decade to secure his retirement, noted that the theft occurred almost instantaneously after installing the software on a new Apple MacBook Neo. On-chain analyst ZachXBT tracked the stolen funds, noting that the 5.9 BTC were distributed across nine transactions to deposit addresses associated with the KuCoin exchange. KuCoin responded to the findings with a standard customer service statement. This event follows a broader trend of increasing crypto-related losses in the United States. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Americans lost over $11 billion to crypto-related incidents in 2025, up from $9 billion the previous year. Similar vulnerabilities have appeared previously across different ecosystems. In 2023, nearly $600,000 in Bitcoin was stolen from users who downloaded a fake Ledger Live application from the Microsoft app store, an incident Microsoft later admitted bypassed its internal review process.