On December 1st, the father of a Dubai-based cryptocurrency entrepreneur was kidnapped on the street in Val d’Oise, France. Another 225-plus entry in Jameson Ropp’s directory confirms physical attacks against digital asset owners.
The pace of enforcement is rapidly increasing, with a 169% increase in reported physical attacks in 2025, according to a database maintained by Ropp, chief security officer at Bitcoin Wallet Casa, for six years.
The risks themselves are not unique to cryptocurrencies. Gold brokers, luxury goods resellers, and even cash couriers have faced the same basic weapon (violence) for centuries. What is new is that digital assets can now be stolen face-to-face.
This change is spurring a new arms race in wallet design. “Panic wallets” with duress triggers that can instantly erase balances, send fake decoys, or call for help with subtle biometric gestures.
This idea seems elegant until you add a wrench. As Ropp told Cointelegraph, “Ultimately, the use of duress wallets relies on speculation about the attacker, and it is impossible to know the attacker’s motives or knowledge.”
The data behind the fear
Ropp’s findings suggest that wrench attacks follow market cycles. It rises during bull markets and periods of active over-the-counter (OTC) trading when large trades move off exchanges. Although the United States leads in terms of absolute cases, the risk per capita is higher in the United Arab Emirates and Iceland.
About a quarter of the incidents are home invasions, often aided by leaked know-your-customer (KYC) data (“kill the customer,” as Ropp laments) and public records documentation. The remaining 23% are kidnappings. Two-thirds of attacks are successful, and approximately 60% of known perpetrators are arrested.
The trend line is roughly correlated with the Bitcoin (BTC) price chart. Each retail mania brings new funds and new targets into the public eye, and criminals seek return on investment just like everyone else.
Related:CRYPTO users attacked over Ledger hardware wallet in France — Report
Test the panic gesture
If digital self-defense is evolving, it is evolving without evidence. “There is not much we can say definitively about the effectiveness of duress wallets/triggers because there is so little data,” Lopp points out.
Related: Bitcoin “wrench attacks” are expected to double in the worst year
He knows of one victim who tried a decoy wallet but was unable to convince her assailant, and another who immediately complied but was tortured for hours because the thief had hidden reserves.
Builders fighting back
Haven co-founder Matthew Jones learned the hard way. After attempting to trade 25 BTC in Amsterdam, the other party fled in a waiting van. His photos helped Europol track gangsters across Europe. No one was caught.
He has since turned that experience into a product: a biometric multi-party storage system built on “continuous authentication without identity exposure.”
Haven’s biometric wallet locks transfers behind a live facial scan that is stored only on the user’s device. Larger transactions over $1,000 require real-time confirmation from a second verifier, such as a spouse or partner.
Changing your contact information will result in a 24-hour wait, making enforcement on the spot almost pointless. “It’s not about bank accounts being emptied, it’s about the money in your wallet being stolen, so it’s about deciding what your risk tolerance is and how much you want to spend,” Jones said.
Related: Are crypto wallets without seed phrases the key to mass self-management? Experts give their opinions
custody dilemma
As physical coercion increases and privacy rules such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Crypto Asset Reporting Framework tighten, even veteran Bitcoiners are beginning to re-evaluate their self-control. Some people now prefer conservatorship to the personal risk.
Ropp said the consequences would be catastrophic: “If enough people decide that self-custody of Bitcoin is too risky to do, it will lead to massive centralization and systemic risk to the entire system. This is a battle I’ve been fighting for 10 years.”
This exposes the paradox at the heart of crypto security in 2025. Every safeguard, from stricter KYC databases to off-chain biometrics, reduces anonymity and expands the attack surface. The frontier problem is no longer the misuse of smart contracts. It’s data exposure and fear.
Related: An example of a “non-enforced KYC” model — Interview with Toobit
what actually works
Despite all innovations, the simplest protection remains social discretion. “The most effective thing Bitcoiners can do to reduce the risk of wrench attacks is something very difficult to do: don’t talk about Bitcoin, at least not while using your real name or face,” Ropp advises.
As hardware wallets learn panic mode and regulators demand more visibility into ownership, the only defense that can scale may be cultural. Most wrench attacks succeed because they can find the victim, not because their wallet is broken.
magazine: 2026 is the year of practical privacy in cryptocurrencies — Canton, Zcash, and more
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