Share this article
T-Mobile Sued Over SIM Attack That Resulted in Loss of $450K in Bitcoin
The plaintiff lost 15 bitcoin after an interaction with a T-Mobile customer who had been victim of a SIM-swapping attack.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 12:11 p.m. Published Feb 12, 2021, 11:15 a.m.
T-Mobile is being sued by a customer as a result of a SIM attack that resulted in over losses of over $450,000 in cryptocurrency.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
- The plaintiff, Calvin Cheng, lost 15 bitcoin after an interaction with Brandon Buchanan, T-Mobile customer and co-founder of investment fund Iterative Capital, who had been victim of a SIM-swapping attack.
- California resident Cheng received a message via Telegram that he believed was from Buchanan offering him an above market value rate for 15 BTC in May 2020.
- The plaintiff's attorneys claim that T-Mobile's "systemic and repeated failures" to protect customers' sensitive information despite increasingly frequent SIM attacks is to blame.
- The complaint, filed Monday in the Southern District of New York, alleges T-Mobile violated federal laws and was negligent in its hiring and training of customer service personnel.
- T-Mobile has claimed that it maintains the highest standard of authentication procedures to protect its customers in the face of account takeover fraud.
- In a similar case, crypto investor Michael Terpin is suing AT&T for $23.8 million, the dollar value of cryptocurrencies that he had stolen in 2018.
See also: Alabama Man Charged Over SIM Swap Hacks That Stole $150K in Crypto
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Coinbase Sees Crypto Recovery Ahead as Liquidity Improves and Fed Rate Cut Odds Climb
The crypto exchange also took note of a so-called AI bubble that continues to go strong and a weaker U.S. dollar.
What to know:
- Coinbase Institutional is seeing a potential December recovery in crypto, citing improving liquidity and a shift in macroeconomic conditions that could favor risk assets like bitcoin.
- The firm's optimism is driven by rising odds of Federal Reserve rate cuts, with markets pricing in a 93% chance easing next week, and improving liquidity conditions.
- Several recent institutional developments, including Vanguard's crypto ETF policy reversal and Bank of America's greenlighting of crypto allocations, have contributed to bitcoin's rebound from recent lows.
Top Stories
