Alena Vranova, founding father of SatoshiLabs, warned of the rise in wrench assaults, bodily assaults and abductions carried out in opposition to Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto holders in an try and steal their non-public keys.
“Each week, there’s a Bitcoiner, at the very least one on the earth, who will get kidnapped, tortured, extorted, and typically even worse,” Vranova informed the viewers on the Baltic Honeybadger 2025 convention in Riga, Latvia.
She warned that even small crypto traders will be on the radar of violent criminals in search of a goal. She added:
“What appears to be an issue just for Bitcoin OGs will not be actually the case. We’ve seen instances of kidnappings for as little as $6,000 value of crypto, and we now have seen folks murdered for $50,000 in crypto.”
The rise in wrench assaults in opposition to crypto holders is a disturbing pattern, with bodily assaults in opposition to Bitcoiners in 2025 on monitor to double the worst yr on document, prompting private security countermeasures from traders, builders, and business executives.
Associated: Wrench assaults drive crypto traders to centralized custodians
Centralized information leaks enlarge the wrench assault risk
Knowledge leaks from centralized crypto exchanges, which gather delicate person data underneath know-your-customer (KYC) necessities, and different centralized software program suppliers who gather consumer information, permit violent criminals to focus on crypto holders and their households.
“We at present have greater than 80 million Bitcoiner and crypto person identities leaked on-line; 2.2 million out of these include residence addresses,” Vranova mentioned.
These assaults are correlated with Bitcoin costs, and the frequency of the assaults rises throughout bull markets, she added.
In Might, crypto change Coinbase disclosed an information breach that leaked the data of a small subset of Coinbase clients, which included residence addresses and different figuring out data.
In June, a report from Cybernews uncovered databases containing greater than 16 billion leaked person login credentials from platforms like Apple, Fb, and Google.
The password leak negatively impacts crypto holders, who will now be topic to elevated phishing, social engineering, hacking, identification theft, and different kinds of focused scams designed to steal person information and funds.
Journal: Bitcoiner intercourse entice extortion? BTS agency’s blockchain catastrophe: Asia Specific
