Ellis Pinsky is an American technology entrepreneur and student at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(NYU). He gained notoriety at a young age for his alleged involvement in a high-profile

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...

theft case.

Controversy

In 2020, when Pinsky was 15 years old, he was accused of masterminding a scheme to steal millions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrencies from the digital wallet of Michael Terpin, a prominent cryptocurrency investor. The scheme involved a social engineering technique known as the

SIM swap scam A SIM swap scam (also known as port-out scam, SIM splitting, Smishing and simjacking, SIM swapping) is a type of Credit card fraud#Account takeover, account takeover fraud that generally targets a weakness in Multi-factor authentication, two-facto ...

. The case gained significant attention due to Pinsky's young age and the large amount of money involved. It raised questions about the security of digital assets and the challenges in regulating and prosecuting crimes in the rapidly evolving world of cryptocurrencies. Pinsky later reached a settlement to pay $22 million dollars in cryptocurrency back to Terpin.

Education and career

Following the controversy, Pinsky pursued higher education and enrolled at New York University.

References

American people of Russian descent Hackers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-bio-stub