Apple Sued Over $1.8 Million Fraudulent Bitcoin Wallet App

Three Bitcoin holders filed a federal lawsuit against Apple Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging the company negligently hosted a fraudulent version of the Sparrow Wallet app. The plaintiffs—James Ramirez, Christopher Ellis, and Jalen Delgado—report combined losses of approximately $1.8 million after entering their seed phrases into the counterfeit application between May and August 2025. The lawsuit claims Apple violated consumer protection laws and committed negligent misrepresentation by marketing the App Store as a safe environment while featuring a scam app, despite the legitimate Sparrow Wallet being available only for desktop systems.

The complaint asserts that Apple failed to act on warnings from the legitimate software's creator, Craig Raw, who had alerted the company to copycat versions as early as January 2024. One plaintiff, James Ramirez, reportedly alerted Apple to the theft of $875,000 on July 25, 2025, yet the malicious app allegedly remained active for more than a week.

Apple declined to comment on the litigation directly but stated it has since removed the impersonating apps and terminated the associated developer accounts. The company defended its security measures, noting it rejected over 371,000 misleading submissions in 2025 and banned 193,000 developer accounts for fraud. Apple maintains that no active Sparrow Wallet copycats currently remain on the platform.