Air Force Veteran Loses $569,000 Worth Of XRP In Crypto Heist
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July 17, 2025 3:45 pm
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Comments
You really hate to hear this.
A U.S. Air Force veteran lost his entire life savings after his Ledger was compromised.
Veteran Brandon Paige revealed hackers were able to gain his seed phrase from his Ledger, which was compromised after his email was hacked.
In total, Paige lost 268,357 shares of XRP, which is worth about $569,000.
Air Force veteran loses $569K in cryptocurrency heist https://t.co/wGrOXYlDf8
— News 6 WKMG (@news6wkmg) July 17, 2025
News 6 broke down how he lost it all:
A devastating digital heist has left U.S. Air Force veteran Brandon Paige without his life savings.
“Initially, I was shocked. I said, ‘There’s no way,’” Paige said.
For eight years, Paige carried his crypto wallet everywhere — through deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the Middle East.
He thought his digital fortune was secure.“I was so terrified to lose these tokens that I moved them to the Ledger in 2017,” Paige said.
A Ledger is a type of crypto wallet designed to be un-hackable because it’s kept offline. But last month, hackers somehow gained access to Paige’s digital wallet, stealing 268,357 shares of XRP cryptocurrency.
“At the time it was $569,000 U.S. dollars,” Paige said. “It’s about $800,000 at current price today.” “I’ve seen it a couple of times,” Watson said.
Watson uncovered how the theft happened.
“When he created the account, he took a picture of that seed phrase and emailed it to himself. So, one of those email addresses was compromised,” Watson explained.
That seed phrase — essentially a password that grants access to a crypto wallet — was all the thieves needed.
I don’t know how Paige is handling this, but it would be completely gut-wrenching for me personally.
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