Cryptocurrencies made some people tremendously rich. Cybercriminals are terrorizing the crypto community by draining wallets, hacking exchanges, running fake initial coin offerings, staging exit scams, phishing, and anything in between.
However, cryptocurrency thefts happen offline as well. According to Jameson Lopp, physical assaults should not be underestimated. Lopp who is just an average crypto geek has collected at least 23 documented cases in a separate GitHub directory. Physical cryptocurrency thefts vary from gunpoint to stolen ATMs, to kidnappings. Yes, criminals are going to extremes when it comes to grabbing your cash.
By the time of writing, the list on GitHub grew to 35.
“To help keep track of the dynamic security landscape for crypto asset owners, I've started an open source repository to catalog physical attacks. Please contribute additions and corrections,” Lopp tweeted. It is alerting that physical assaults become more frequent over time. Lopp himself emphasized that 10 of the cases he had found had happened in the last six months. “Seems to be strong evidence that the rate of these attacks is accelerating,” Lopp tweets.
As always, threads covering cryptocurrency thefts quickly get viral. During the heated debate on Twitter, many users claimed they have also been victims to crypto-thirsty criminals. One user claims to have been held hostage, providing police report as an evidence, “Was held hostage for a few hours in China.”
Another user adds, “Kyiv is mentioned only once there were at least 3 already described publicly.”
Anyways, the list covers violent events that took place between December 29, 2014 and July 6, 2018 (as of writing). Documented cases vary by country as various attacks have happened across the USA (12), the United Kingdom (2), France, Russia, Hong Kong, and Singapore among others. If you are interested in details about a certain event you can check them by following the included sources.
In only one case, the victim was able to defend itself by spraying the bad actor with repellent. Lopp tweets, “Of the 28 documented physical attacks against bitcoin owners, only 1 target has successfully stopped the attacker.”
Remember, the first rule of crypto trade is - you don’t talk about crypto trade!
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