Crypto Wealth Brings Physical Danger, Kidnappings Rise 2025

The rise of crypto wealth has brought with it an unsettling reality: physical danger. In recent months, a wave of assaults, kidnappings, and extortion attempts has shaken the crypto elite, forcing many to rethink the true cost of self-custody and the limits of their current security setups. In May 2025, the escalation became painfully clear. In Paris, the father of a crypto entrepreneur was abducted while walking his dog. Kidnappers severed his finger and sent ransom videos to his son. He was rescued by police, who arrested several suspects. Days later, attackers targeted the daughter and grandson of a crypto CEO in a failed daylight kidnapping, also in Paris. In New York, an Italian man was captured and tortured for 17 days for his bitcoin fortune before escaping. His captors were arrested shortly after.

These are not isolated cases. In January, a co-founder of a crypto hardware wallet company and his wife were taken hostage at their home in France. In 2024, authorities arrested six men after forcing a couple from their car in a plot allegedly tied to the couple’s son, who was accused of stealing over $240 million in bitcoin. The same year, a judge sentenced an individual to 47 years in prison for leading a violent home invasion ring that specifically targeted crypto holders.

Crypto crime has spilled offline. It’s no longer just about hacks; it’s home invasions, kidnappings, and coercion. Crypto holders must now redefine what security truly means. The risk stems not only from crypto’s libertarian aura—it’s baked into the architecture. Private keys—alphanumeric strings that grant access to crypto wallets—are stored by crypto holders themselves, beyond the reach of banks, courts, or account freezes. A single 24-word seed phrase may control billions of dollars, and once compromised, there’s no reversing the damage.

This creates a high-stakes vulnerability. As crypto holders become increasingly savvy online, criminals start resorting to physical attacks. Social media only amplifies the risk. Some crypto advocates are prominent by choice; others inadvertently advertise their wealth. Either way, they become visible, traceable, and ultimately targetable. Data leaks only compound the exposure. Last month, a major crypto exchange disclosed a breach affecting under 1% of its active users. The incident involved sensitive data, including full names, home addresses, government-issued IDs, and masked financial details. The breach was reportedly caused by bribed support staff, underscoring that internal threats are often as dangerous as external hacks.

Making matters worse, careless regulatory approaches often exacerbate the risk. Government regulations, while well-intentioned, increasingly require centralized collection of wallet addresses and user identities. Rules mandate exchanges to store and transmit identity-linked transaction data, even for withdrawals to self-hosted wallets. These policies expose users to the same doxxing vulnerabilities common in traditional database breaches, but without the safety net of traditional finance. Once a crypto address is tied to a real-world identity and leaked, it becomes a permanent map of a user’s financial history—traceable, targetable, and irreversible.

The scale of security spending among crypto executives illustrates just how seriously the risk is being taken. Coinbase has spent a significant amount on personal security for its CEO. Circle allocated a substantial amount to protect its CEO. Robinhood spent a considerable amount to secure its CEO. Most crypto users, however, cannot afford personal bodyguards or private intelligence teams. Many turn to custodial solutions—ETFs, centralized exchanges, or third-party vaults. These offer an escape from the burden of personal key management, but at the cost of reintroducing trusted intermediaries—which defies the very idea of trustless, independent money.

For those committed to self-custody, a new playbook is emerging. Speaking at a Bitcoin Investor event, co-founder of a bitcoin security service provider outlined the core principles of self-custody in a world where physical threats to crypto holders are on the rise. “If you are able to move substantial assets from one location under duress—if someone’s pointing a gun at you—that’s a single point of failure and the only way to avoid it is to get those controls away from you,” he said. The solution, according to him, is to decentralize control through multi-signature wallets, which require multiple keys to authorize a transaction. Ideally, those keys are distributed across different geographic locations, devices, and operational protocols. Another essential principle is time. In coercive attacks—such as home invasions or kidnappings—attackers typically seek speed. Timelocks—programmed delays that prevent immediate asset transfers—can buy critical minutes or hours.

That said, multisig isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. It can involve trusted collaborators or be configured for a single individual with keys spread across different environments. The strength of a self-custody setup lies in diversity across hardware, software, physical conditions, and even resilience to natural disasters. He also stressed that strong privacy is the foundation of both personal and asset security. Public exposure of crypto holdings—whether through social media or leaked data—dramatically increases the likelihood of being targeted. In his view, robust security is multi-layered. Each added layer—whether it's location separation, transaction delay, or operational secrecy—compounds the difficulty for potential attackers. “When we are talking about privacy and security, there is no silver bullet,” he said. “It’s just the aggregate of doing many good practices that make you a harder and harder target.”

Beyond multisig and timelocks, several other tools can help reduce the risks of real-world threats. Some hardware wallets support hidden wallets protected by a passphrase, providing plausible deniability under coercion. Others use decoy wallets funded with small amounts, designed to appease attackers without giving up access to the primary stash. Smart contract wallets offer social recovery mechanisms, enabling trusted contacts to help restore access in the event of loss or compromise. For high-risk profiles, emergency vault sweep systems—automated transactions that trigger if the owner fails to check in—can serve as a final layer of protection. Crypto security is no longer just about digital hygiene. What started with passwords and seed phrases must now account for physical risks, operational discipline, and situational awareness. As crypto wealth grows, so does the need for a security mindset that matches its scale and stakes.