Recently, there has been a sharp increase in reports of violent robberies targeting cryptocurrency assets, with self-custody wallets struggling to protect individual assets in a "wrench attack."
BlockBeats News, November 26th. Today, a news of a home invasion robbery once again rocked the crypto community. Lachy Groom, ex-boyfriend of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, fell victim to an armed robbery last Saturday night, losing $11 million worth of crypto assets. The suspect disguised as a delivery person, entered the residence, held the victim at gunpoint, physically assaulted him, tied him up with duct tape, emptied his crypto accounts, and stole his mobile phone and laptop. In addition to this case, recent reports of robbery incidents targeting cryptocurrency assets have been on the rise, including:
· In St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 22nd, police arrested a man who broke into an exchange office, detonated two fake grenades, and ignited a smoke bomb. He then demanded that the staff transfer all of the exchange's crypto assets to his personal wallet. The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful, and he was arrested.
· A man from Hong Kong was sentenced to 7 years in prison in Canada recently for his involvement in an extremely brutal home invasion robbery: four attackers disguised as postal workers broke into a residence in British Columbia, subjected a family of three to 13.5 hours of beating, waterboarding, sexual assault threats, and ultimately stole $1.6 million worth of Bitcoin.
· On the afternoon of November 4th, two men and three women were attacked while traveling from Oxford to London. The robbers took their watches and the victims' phones, and forced one of them to transfer cryptocurrency from their account. They ended up stealing a watch worth £450,000 and £1.1 million (approximately $1.44 million) in cryptocurrency.
Violent robbery incidents have once again become the focus of the crypto community. Steve Krystek, CEO of the personal security company PFC Safeguards, said that incidents of crypto investors being kidnapped are on the rise. Some jokingly refer to such attacks as "wrench attacks," implying that whether cryptocurrency can protect personal assets depends on whether the user can withstand a beating with a $5 wrench.
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