Retired Artist Loses 17.5 BTC to Coinbase Impersonators

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.