Who is Ellis Pinsky, the so-called ‘teenage crypto kingpin’?
The crypto world is full of several controversies. On the one hand, bigshots like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have condemned cryptoassets on separate occasions, and on the other, high-stakes hacks have resulted in losses.
One of the famous cryptocurrency hacks is the January 2018 heist, which involved the theft of nearly USD 23.8 million from the digital vault of crypto entrepreneur Michael Terpin. The “brain” behind the hack was one Ellis Pinsky, also called “teenage crypto kingpin”. Let us know about the hacking attack in detail.
Hacked by Ellis Pinsky
The hack is said to have been carried out by several hackers, working from Europe and the US, with Pinsky as the mastermind. The method is said to have involved the use of SIM swapping techniques, where the identity of the real holder of the SIM card is falsified.
Michael Terpin’s handset – a BlackBerry phone – had the digital vault that stored crypto. Terpin sued Ellis Pinsky and other accomplices in 2020, reportedly seeking $71.7 million in damages. In a related case, Terpin had secured a civil judgment in his favor in 2019 from a California state court.
A damages lawsuit filed by Terpin against service provider AT&T was dismissed by a California judge in 2020.
Who is Ellis Pinsky?
It was reported that Pinsky was only 15 years old when the hack occurred. His mother is a doctor at NYU Langone, and Pinsky had interests in gaming. It was also reported that after the lawsuit by Terpin, some men broke into Pinsky’s home with a motive to extract information about stolen cryptos.
Pinsky, a suburban New Yorker, allegedly led the team of hackers that breached Terpin’s phone. This is why he is sometimes referred to as the teenage crypto king and even “Baby Al Capone”.
A detailed history of the hack of Ellis Pinsky and the following events is reproduced in an article, available on Apple’s news platform. The article also talks about Pinsky’s side of the story and how he allegedly spent the money. Meanwhile, in the world of crypto, the biggest digital asset, Bitcoin is trading at almost half its value compared to its price at the beginning of this year.
also read: Cryptoqueen Ruja Ignatova on the Most Wanted List: What it means for cryptos
Data provided by CoinMarketCap.com
The bottom line
Pinsky’s hacking episode is one of many such incidents that have rocked the world of digital currencies based on the blockchain technology. What made Pinsky stand out was his young age when he pulled off the multi-million dollar heist.
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