Alena Vranova, founding father of SatoshiLabs, warned of the rise in wrench assaults, bodily assaults and abductions carried out towards Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto holders in an try and steal their non-public keys.
“Each week, there’s a Bitcoiner, no less than one on this planet, who will get kidnapped, tortured, extorted, and typically even worse,” Vranova instructed the viewers on the Baltic Honeybadger 2025 convention in Riga, Latvia.
She warned that even small crypto traders may be on the radar of violent criminals searching for a goal. She added:
“What appears to be an issue just for Bitcoin OGs is just not actually the case. Now we have seen circumstances 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 towards crypto holders is a disturbing development, with bodily assaults towards Bitcoiners in 2025 on observe to double the worst yr on report, prompting private security countermeasures from traders, builders, and business executives.
Associated: Wrench assaults drive crypto traders to centralized custodians
Centralized information leaks amplify the wrench assault menace
Information leaks from centralized crypto exchanges, which acquire delicate consumer info underneath know-your-customer (KYC) necessities, and different centralized software program suppliers who acquire consumer information, permit violent criminals to focus on crypto holders and their households.
“We presently have greater than 80 million Bitcoiner and crypto consumer identities leaked on-line; 2.2 million out of these include residence addresses,” Vranova stated.
These assaults are correlated with Bitcoin costs, and the frequency of the assaults rises throughout bull markets, she added.
In Could, crypto change Coinbase disclosed an information breach that leaked the knowledge of a small subset of Coinbase prospects, which included residence addresses and different figuring out info.
In June, a report from Cybernews uncovered databases containing greater than 16 billion leaked consumer 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, id theft, and different forms of focused scams designed to steal consumer information and funds.
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