Ed Suman, a 67-year-old retired artist who helped create large sculptures like Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog, reportedly lost his entire life savings — over $2M in digital assets — in a sophisticated scam.
The incident is believed to be tied to the major data breach at Coinbase, one of the world’s largest digital asset exchanges.
Suman’s story is part of a bigger wave of attacks on digital asset holders using stolen personal info, and has triggered lawsuits, regulatory concerns and questions about digital security in the Bitcoin space.
In March 2025, Suman got a text message about suspicious activity on his Coinbase account. After Suman reported he was unaware of any unauthorized activity regarding his account, he got a call from a man who introduced himself as Brett Miller from Coinbase Security.
The guy sounded legit — he knew Suman’s setup, including that he used a Trezor Model One hardware wallet, a device meant to keep bitcoin and other digital assets offline and safe.
Suman told Bloomberg the guy knew everything, including the exact amount of digital assets he had.
The attacker persuaded Suman that his Trezor One hardware wallet and its funds were at risk and walked him through a “security procedure” that involved entering his seed phrase into a website that looked exactly like Coinbase, in order to “link his wallet to Coinbase”.
Nine days later, another guy called and repeated the process, saying the first one didn’t work.
And then, all of Suman’s digital assets — 17.5 bitcoin and 225 ether — were gone. At the time, bitcoin was around $103,000 and ether around $2,500, so the stolen stash was worth over $2 million.
Suman turned to digital assets after retiring from a decades-long art career. He stored his assets in cold storage to avoid the risks of online exchanges. He thought he did everything right.
Suman’s attackers didn’t pick his name out of a hat.
It looks like his personal info may have been leaked in the major breach at Coinbase. The company confirmed on May 15 that some of its customer service reps in India were bribed to access internal systems and steal customer data.
The stolen data included names, phone numbers, email addresses, balances and partial Social Security numbers.
According to Coinbase’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the breach may have started as early as January and affected nearly 1% of the company’s active monthly users — tens of thousands of people.
Hackers demanded $20M from Coinbase to keep the breach quiet but the company refused to pay. Coinbase says it fired the compromised agents and is setting aside $180M to $400M to reimburse affected users.
But so far, Suman hasn’t been told if he’ll be reimbursed.
Since the breach was disclosed, Coinbase has been hit with at least six lawsuits.
The lawsuits claim the company failed to protect user data and handled the aftermath poorly. One lawsuit filed in New York federal court on May 16 says Coinbase’s response was “inadequate, fragmented, and delayed.”
“Users were not promptly or fully informed of the compromise,” the complaint states, “and Coinbase did not immediately take meaningful steps to mitigate further harm.”
Some lawsuits are seeking damages, others are asking Coinbase to purge user data and improve its security. Coinbase has not commented on the lawsuits but pointed reporters to a blog post about its response.
Suman’s case is a cautionary tale across the Bitcoin world. He used a hardware wallet (considered the gold standard of Bitcoin security) and was still tricked through social engineering. Even the strongest security is useless if you don’t understand how Bitcoin works.
It’s never too early for Bitcoiners to start learning more about Bitcoin, especially on how to keep their stash safe. And the first lesson is “never ever share your seed phrase with anyone”.
Related: Bitcoin Hardware Wallet Hacks: What You Need to Know
