"It was my own damn fault for not being more diligent," artist says

Garrett Dutton, the musician better known as G. Love, claimed that he lost his Bitcoin savings to a scammer. “I had a really tough day today I lost my retirement fund in a hack/Scam when I switched my @Ledger over to my new computer and by accident downloaded a malicious ledger app from the @Apple store,” he wrote on social media over the weekend. “All my BTC gone in an instant.” He followed up the post with a hardy message to those who doubt him: “Fuck all yall haters that called me a liar,” he wrote.

The amount of money Dutton lost is staggering, 5.9 bitcoin, “all I had,” he wrote, noting that he’d been saving up for nearly a decade. The conversion rate at the time of publication means he lost approximately $443,000. “Getting robbed is no joke,” he wrote in a message.

“I been in the crypto circus since 2017,” he wrote. “Today, they caught me off guard. It was my own damn fault for not being more diligent. But let it serve as a warning. There’s so many scams.”

In messages exchanged on Tuesday, Dutton told KuCoin — a crypto platform that the thieves allegedly used to launder the money — that he had notified the authorities of the theft. KuCoin told Dutton on social media, “We have taken temporary restraining measures and temporarily frozen the suspicious account for 7 days.” Billboard reports that Apple removed the fraudulent Ledger app from his service.

A rep for Dutton did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

“Everybody works hard to try to get by and do as best they can for their family,” he wrote in another message, “and I think it just can be all going in an instant the minute you let your guard down for one second. It’s a tough road ride.”

G. Love and Special Sauce, the band he’s fronted since 1992, enjoyed a streak of hit records in the Nineties and early 2000s thanks to hits like “Stepping Stones,” “Rodeo Clowns,” and “Astronaut.” The group’s most recent album, Ode to L.R., came out last year.