Bitcoin Forum

Crypto crime rate has increased significantly. An article in Cointelegraph stated that criminals have stolen around $4.5B worth of digital currency in the first half of 2019 alone.^[1]
"The growth in popularity of cryptocurrencies has, in many ways, outpaced the infrastructure built to support it." ^[2]
Exchanges which control most of the trading volume and also act as a storage place for cryptocurrency have become an easy target of hackers. So, could insurance be a promising sector in cryptocurrency or there are drawbacks to it? What could be the challenges for both the insurer and the insured?

^[1]https://cointelegraph.com/news/cyber-criminals-netted-43b-from-crypto-related-crime-in-2019-study (https://cointelegraph.com/news/cyber-criminals-netted-43b-from-crypto-related-crime-in-2019-study)
^[2]https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-insurance-a-promising-sector-despite-caution-of-major-players (https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-insurance-a-promising-sector-despite-caution-of-major-players)

The insurer is, at most at risk here, given the vulnerabilities of some systems and the lack of sense of security some individuals have. For sure this will be a hit to the insured knowing that their assets would be covered should there be some unforeseen circumstances happening to it, but the insurer would definitely be one-step ahead and be excluding things like theft and hacks on the list of the things they can consider to apply for a claim. If the insurer does such a thing, I don't think a lot of people would be applying to it, though it's the best thing they can do in order to not get bankrupt within the first year of operation knowing how rampant hacks and theft is in this scene.

Oh yes definitely. Just like any other sector Cryptocurrencies too are
e prone to various types of threats such as theft and lost private keys risk. Moreover the advent of hacking is such that not only exchanges get their funds hacked but also face some consequential losses due to it. Last project i saw related to insurance on blockchain was insurepal but I am not quite sure they are working on it anymore just like any other scam ico. But it would be interesting to see how insurance companies try to indemnify the insureds as the chances of the criminals getting caught here is negligible. Moreover as it is an unregulated sector chances of losses are much higher. So premiums would definitely be pretty higher too.

Crypto insurance can be a promising business area but the volume wouldn't be very significant considering many major economies have not yet legalized bitcoin and crypto businesses. Because this is one business which is not bound to any boundary.

We still have a lot of confusion in legal structures which makes this particular sector somewhat difficult to follow!

It will definitely become a big thing if all major economies decide to come together and follow one unfied set of operating rules which would cover the boundary less operations of crypto exchanges. Otherwise, it will just be a small and sectoral business opportunity.

What do you mean by Insurance? I don't think this is possible if you call for personal crypto wallets. If this happens, decentralization is over. But if you mean exchanges, many exchanges have already worked on this.

If we assume the definition of insurance is - I am paid out for my fuckup - the answer is never.

For personal coverage we all know how crap most people are with online security. The only sensible insurance policy would never pay out because your coverage would only cover total impregnability.

I also hope we never find out how effective some of the policies are that certain exchanges claim to have for their own funds.

I don't think insurance is possible in CryptoCurrency. It's hard to say how public careless with online security . I saw someone lost BTC100 btc of greed for 10 Bch! So how does insurance help here?
If the exchanges are covered by insurance then it will be good.

I have read about Chinese government using blockchain for storing and providing insurance and health records.
 As we generally define crypto as a valued token crypto and blockchain may be considered different things. But these crypto tokens could also be used along with blockchain on other fields without carrying any value.

Here's an article about Baidu's Xuperchain
https://www.ledgerinsights.com/health-blockchain-baidu-medical/

Well, if I were an insurer I would set up the conditions on how the insured should deposit his cryptocurrencies. If they don't take the security measures we agree upon through a contract then our agreement becomes null and he won't get a dime. I would blend the insurance business with the consulting part and create an all-in-one crypto assets management service. Nowadays there are threats all over the internet from entering a website using a phishing link to using an unsecured internet connection. So tight security measures are a must.

Thanks for starting this topic! I've been thinking about it for a while now, and I've been writing about it on this forum multiple times. I think that crypto insurance will be the next big thing indeed because it's an unexplored market and something very profitable and attractive both for users and for insurance companies. I am actually even looking to invest in such a company, but I haven't seen anything looking promising so far. I am waiting for a relatively big player in this niche to appear, and then I'd buy some stock. I don't have much money I can afford to lose, though, so I wouldn't invest a lot, but I would really like to be able to invest something in such a company.

I can't really see your logic at work here because, the said player played out of greed and not insured his fund. Public carelessness shouldn't be the responsibility of the insurance  company. The only significant stand should be on the part of the insurance company, if they neglect their responsibility of protecting funds under their custody.
This will possibly help the cryptocurrency industry with a new phase of life and, potential investors maybe welcome.

Well could be if its well structured and has a good policy for refunds. Also in my opinion doing insurance in crypto right now is a bad decision because there are a lot of speculators waiting for something like this. Also don't think what you will be paid for your mistakes because that won't happened.

Usually insurance always win but with crypto will be way different so lets wait to see how Crypto Insurances will evolve in time and maybe we can trust them in order to extra secure our funds.

I don't think insurance can be a big thing for cryptocurrencies personally because the company cannot predict what can happen and what can't .. we see 100% loss instantly , it's not something that can be defined by any policy ;the risk factor is too high therefore am not really sure why would a company provide insurance for this ...
Who knows.. ?

If there is a real threat with hackers targeting the exchanges and no one is able to take care of the security then which insurance company will come forward to risk that much, Insurance companies will not come forward if there is a high risk involved and billions are lost because of hackers in the market and no company will accept these high risk business. Regulators must keep a security deposit on the amount of trade volume and if that happens then we might not see exchange hacks in the future :D.

Exchanges don't have a long life so definitely the insurer would suffer huge loses as they won't be getting enough premium to even cover the damages caused by hacks and plus proving it is not an inside job is tough where crypto is concerned. I read about insurance companies charging 5% as premium and insuring upto $250000 but if the exchange gets hacked before 10 years, these companies will be in severe loss and exchanges are always at high risk. Insurance is good to have but when exchanges make sure they maintain high security and cannot be hacked easily while even a big exchange like Binance cannot claim they are secure while having a hot wallet.

The chances of survival of such crypto insurance will not be guaranteed due to the high risk involved in crypto system, so many hacking and stealing millions of bitcoin lately while any organization that will take the bull by the horn and embark on such an adventure be in for a very difficult task while the insured will not border about spending millions of dollars to fortify their security systems after-all insurance had covered any stealing while the insurer is in for a very difficult challenge in an event of stealing or hacking of the insured.

Unfortunately, huge amounts of digital money has been stolen until now. Some measures must be taken and I think 'crypto insurance' could be one of them. By means of 'crypto insurance', people won't be a victim of these actions.

Any risk is justifiable if the premiums are high enough. Any prospective policyholder's system would also be thoroughly vetted by the underwriters. I believe that insurers will dip their toes in the water by further pooling the risk. For example, Coinbase's current policy for its hot wallet storage has multiple underwriters.

Regular people like you and me would never qualify for insurance like this. It's for large scale custodians or extremely high net-worth individuals who can afford the extremely high premiums.

looking at the current state of the crypto space, crypto insurance can not really make any significant change or reduce crypto crime. It will be very difficult for an insurance project or platform to restore stolen cryptocurrencies. most of these situation  involve huge amount of funds being stolen and restore or repaying back such funds is not gonna be easy. The best thing that can be done to reduce crypto crime is an improvement of the security nature of exchange platforms and crypto wallet..

If the legality of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency has been established maybe it can be a big thing but as of right now the possibility is still hanging, If fiat currency had made it and it becomes possible on that why not with Cryptocurrency as well, The question is who gonna establish this a whale can certainly make his own insurance company but the legality of cryptocurrency is not yet passed, but for me I think this is great as you can sure be insured with cryptocurrency and establishing this in the near future it can be a backbone for certain opportunity, but can it become possible in the future? 

It's a great read btw

Crypto insurance can be a very effective formula for people whose crypto money is robbed. But there should be some criteria for insurance of course. If there is not limitations, crypto insurance company or insurer will have hard times.

I don't think crypto insurance is going to be a big thing any time soon
simply because of the fact that crypto doesn't have legal status in many countries and in many countries you would have hard time explaining what happened to the local police
then there is this problem of tracing and recovering the stolen assets , the transactions are irreversible and if the funds are stolen , in most cases they are gone
insurance companies know their risks and their analysts are top notch , so I highly doubt they would want to take on this market just yet
maybe in the future ,in 5-10 years time when the legal aspects are established and bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have their legal status we could see some crypto insurance companies appear
but at the moment it is too early

yeah surely is that insurance is what cryptonians need to assure their assets to be secured and safe

but what if the insurance itself is the scammers/hackers?around the world cases about insurance company is really alarming,many of them that supposed to help the people are the one who victimizes them
maybe this is another arguments to tackle before gathering support but for now we must find a strong and reliable one

There shouldn't be a need for insurance in crypto, especially when we are trusting exchanges with millions of dollars worth of assets. They should be the ones that make sure our funds are safe from hackers, and it's not fair for us to need to pay insurance on our own funds.

It'll be very hard to implement such a thing as well -  how would companies insure someone getting hacked, how much would you pay and how would you even prove you got hacked in the first place? There are too many questions for this to work.

can someone share about insurance that existing and reliable to use?those been here for long and has many users already
from so many scamming and hacking that happened lately it is very alarming that one day our exchange is the next victim.no matter how secured they are but this hackers are more advance and knowledgeable to take down their target and we cannot deny the fact that the last victims are bigger exchange

willing to have one as my holdings are getting high and im afraid of losing

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but this may a good initiative for the investors to create insurance company that legit and can be trusted and must be owned by popular team in this community

The premiums and restrictions will make crypto insurance usless

It could be the best solution for the exchanges especially if they will get hack then they can still continue their operation as they are insured but I am not that sure if someone is willing to launch a crypto insurance.

Being insured is the best option for the exchange to continue without worrying anything even if they will get hacked but in crypto world, everything is possible like the exchange will create an inside job just to get the insurance. So I am wondering, what will be the counter of the insurance company if they are going to step into crypto insurance.

Using cryptocurrency as your insurance is better because your money will increase if bitcoin price higher one day, but did you see how many insurance companies have bankrupt they cannot pay claim by their member and there are use money, but how come if your insurance using bitcoin and price increase higher next time?

I think insurance policies could be the next big thing in crypto space but I doubt it will ever attract the attention of most ordinary users who often holds less than 1 BTC at a time. Aside from that, I assume it is generally targeted only to big players into the crypto industry like exchanges, crypto projects who holds large value of crypto, etc.

I believe its one of the good things that happened in the industry, giving more sense of security and assurances and it could enable more players to adopt cryptocurrency by minimizing risks  associated with hodling crypto which are often one of the reasons why most investors don't want to partake or be part of this industry.

Crypto insurance is going to create more problems for exchanges, because that cost must come from somewhere and usually those extra overheads will have to be generated from higher fees to their customers. The Exchanges will also give less attention to software exploits, because they would rely on the insurance to cover their losses, when exploits are found.

Most insurance will also not cover all the losses, so the victims of these hacks would not get all their money back, when someone hack these services and insurance is very expensive, so they will not take cover for large amounts.  ::)

There hasn't been any services that are in the insurance business actually, and it's for a pretty good reason why - it's too hard to do such a thing.

There are so many questions to answer when it comes to online insurance, mostly because of how easy it is to fake stuff online. Here's an example.

1. How do you know it was a real loss of funds?
2. How much would you pay for this?
3. Who would be paying for this?
4. What if someone loses millions, will you have enough money to pay for it?

I am not interesting with insurance because only get less effect for us, we save money every month but when service still less and bad we got with many insurance company.

Having insurance means having the government in control since insurance companies work under the government. Then the government having control means bitcoin being centralized and they will make a step in order for bitcoin to be controlled by them so I strongly disagree and oppose that insurance can be a big thing in bitcoin.

I believe being insured will be good for most of the community since I understand exchanges will be forced to harden up their security mechanisms or maybe required to pass a security audit and comply other relevant requirements first before any insurance firm will consider them as insurable which in effect would make these exchanges much more secure in their ability to hold external funds coming from its customers.

Aside from that, once insured, these exchanges will continue to observe and implement utmost security upon their platform without being reliant on insurance because they don't want their platform being compromised since they could loose  customers, credibility, and more money! and if it happens , I think it will incur much more damages than the total amount of insurance premiums they will be required to pay.

We will not see bitcoin will grow fast if the insurance companies work under the government because the government will prevent the spreading of bitcoin in public. Perhaps, after the government controls the insurance, the government will make a regulation to the crypto user so they can register the existence of themselves in the insurance companies to the government can watch them. But perhaps, the insurance can bring something new to the crypto world, so many people will know more about crypto, and they don't feel afraid to invest in crypto.

You would need some form of contract, both digital and physical, that could prevent the one asking for insurance from running away. Also, a program that could serve as a contract where if one party fails to follow the details of the contract, penalties would be applied to that fellows account. Now solving the loopholes would be very difficult since multiple wallet could be made and a huge factor people could take advantage of. Just the fact that users are can be made anonymous or users can create new wallets, implementing the insurance system could be very difficult.

To tell the truth, I loved the 'crypto insurance' idea. Insuring cryptos we all own will secure our digital money and we will be more relieved when our crypto is gone. But of course, there will be limitations and insurance policy won't recover our digital money for all reasons.

I doubt it when it comes to hosted wallets. Bitcoin is based on the notion of decentralisation, and even with insurance, I doubt that people would trust online hosted wallets for that exact reason - it takes away from the decentralised nature of bitcoin wallets.

Thus, I don't think that such an insurance product for depositor balances would ever take off. I doubt that there would be a lot of providers for the insurance either since there is no guarantee that the service itself wouldn't go rogue and fake a hack to claim insurance money, etc. with the untraceability of the blockchain.

When it comes to price hedges, though, such a product could be mainstream. But then, you've already got perpetual futures and options that people can buy on the derivatives market to insure themselves against adverse price movements.

That's possible but the company that's going to set up this must first do a feasibility study if the business that they are going to set up, will give them assurance that they will no go out of business, because of the to many hacking that are going on, the exchange should be the one to insure traders funds, in my opinion we don't need this, the responsibility should be on the exchange.

Well, you have a point there but I don't think you really understand the point and suggestion of this post. This post was to find out if having crypto insurance projects in the crypto space will be the next big project.  You should recheck the post and try to get what the post meant..

There are much insurance for cryptocurrency that are coming up today, because of so many scams and hacking events I think insurance has a vital rule in the industry of btc and altcoins. The challenge for the insurer is the absence of past information and data, that is one of problem that the insurer hard to figure it out. Few percentage of crypto trading and exchanges are insured today, still a lot more crypto businesses are not. When trading industry will think about the instability of the cryptocurencies ecosystem then they should put their coins insured. That is why insurance in cryptocurrency is one big craze.

That's pretty accurate to what's happening, it's really hard to secure crypto assets because it's a lot different to a car or a house, where it'll be pretty easy to find out if it burnt down by the owner for insurance, whilst you can easily fake getting hacked online.

I don't think there's such a world where we'll see insurance for a decentralized product like BTC. There could be a world where price hedges are a thing, but it does seem pretty useless and is very niche for a business.

It might be worth considering the storage and insurance of crypto in ration to gold. This company offers a service for gold investors. You will see that it requires the owner to deposit his gold in their vaults.
https://www.bullionrock.com/bullion-guide/storage-and-insurance
Similar services are being created at the moment for funds that have over $1,000,000 in Bitcoin, but they require the owner to leave the coins in the insurer's wallet. This will reduce the use of Bitcoin for daily transaction, and transfers the real ownership of the coins away from the investor.

What do you mean they can't see it, we all can see it, we can see the transaction hash the funds and the balance, even if it is online it still has an entity, but I agree there should be guidelines when it comes to insuring a Cryptocurrency or a third party insurer besides being insured by the exchange, but if I am a company I have to check my option if I can really ensure that large amount somethings hackers are hacking millions of dollars

With the increasing number of hacking victims and the number of people with huge losses because of volatility it is really tempting to avail of crypto insurance. But insurance companies in reality are also avoiding huge risk since cryptocurrency really is very risky I guess the insurance companies will not enter into this business. But if it will really occur that a certain insurance company will be dealing with crypto then it will be a big hit especially for big traders and exchanges.

Of course! I think everybody wants their funds being safe all the time! and in fact, I think even users of  large exchanges such Binance and Coinbase had in one way the other been benefiting from insurance policies acquired by both of these entities. Aside from a regular insurance, Binance did another wonderful program to further safeguard its customers funds with Binance SAFU to augment the coverage of its regular insurance policies.

In this aspect, I think we can deduce that our funds are more safer in these two exchanges compared to others who don't have yet insurance coverage and most people value this kinds of things that would most likely give them peace of mind regarding their funds security with custodial wallets as with the case of exchanges.

The possibility for such a insurance service is quite a complex thing, because when there is some crime or hack takes place through insurance one can get back the funds. Same time these funds can be send by the respective person to known person and claim it a hack for the insurance funds. Only thing maybe the present insurance firms can accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as premium.

Insurance companies make their insurance policies based on risk evualtion,
They have people who work on mathematical models and try to get as much information about the cases when they have to pay out.

I doubt that there is enough information for insurance companies to use for their analytics to justify their policies and cost of insurance. Also they crypto value chnages all the time, how would they include that in their policy..

I don't know, I cannot imagine how would that look like. Is it will just like a bank but online and the involved money is in crypto? Also, there would be many problems in terms of legality since majority of countries still didn't recognized bitcoin and some even are against it. Companies will be also a deciding factor here since some like banks will try to stop it because they see it as a competitor. I don't know.

insurance is good in everything which give second thought of chance by give a risk management in place and having your funds save in case of stolen or hack, and that is a new way blockchain need to take step on which i believe will make crypo boom for more adoption .

I was talking about this thing last month to a friend of mine who is also into cryptocurrency. There is a big need for different cryptocurrency exchanges to apply for insurance so that in case of a successful hacking and other specified misfortune the exchange will have funds to cover what was lost and can assure their customers that the risks are already covered. Of course, the insurer has to laid down the many legal parameters for the insurance like what can be covered and how to make sure that there are no frauds involved. I am not sure if we ordinary holders of cryptocurrency will soon be able to get insurance for our holdings but this is quite possible as insurance business is really all about allying possible risks in the course of doing business and again it is all up to the insurer to set up the guidelines to follow by both parties involved. I am sure that big insurers are already eyeing on how they can do big business in the era of cryptocurrency and digitalization and soon we can see how developments are taking place in this emerging industry.

There's a need for exchanges to protect user funds, not purchase insurance or do what else to make sure they don't lose money. An exchange or bank should be held responsible for your money and they need to be made sure they are impenetrable otherwise the rule of keeping your funds in your own hardware will never change.

Also, no buisness would ever be willing to pay out millions in a hack, unless the exchange would be paying huge fees, and the exchange won't want to do that.

Something needs to change for sure though.

who wants insurance services, as a private user, I would reject it. it is the obligation of the exchange market owners to insure their consumer assets. in my opinion, rather than insuring assets, it is better to increase security periodically.  because if there is no infrastructure improvement, I'm sure if there is theft the insurance will not cover compensation.

I still do not understand how do you plan to execute the said insurance even if it is legally be possible
for it to protect you there must be a legal mechanism in place based on which the companies that insure you work
you cannot create something that is not regulated and have it deal with the finances
thats one thing , lets assume you got all of the licenses and permissions for your insurance business
how do you determine the validity of the claim , the transactions are irreversible , you'd get swamped with fake claims and won't be able to neither return the funds nor find out who stole it
or if it was a theft or it was done to cheat you out of the insurance money by transferring coins to another wallet etc.

I personally think that a regulatory commision is a much better option than this insurance companies. A regulatory board with integration to the government to enforce policies and laws regarding crypto, but won't go as far as controlling the market. The market should still be decentralized without control from the government. Their job will only be to distribute permits to operate for companies that want to engage or establish crypto-related projects.

One thing I know for sure that an insurance will get the best out of crypto is the hope that it can provide. Let's take for example, if a person is alive and he/she took a death insurance using cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, whether the value of bitcoin isn't enough whenever he/she dies, the insurance company will just need to wait further time for the value of bitcoin to rise. So, the family of the deceased need not to worry about paying debts. Though, what we should consider the most is having an insurance pertaining to health. Quite weird to plan for our death while we're still alive.

I am very happy as a bitcoin user, this is a good solution to worry about losing bitcoin and this will make it more convenient for investors to invest more money.

There is some exchange who has done it recently, such as binance exchange who has gave an insurance to their member when the exchange had hacked a few months back. Yeah, I'll agree with this concept and I believe there will be many people who get an interest to it especially for newcomers.

So as they will comfortable to run each investment that they choose on cryptosphere. Because most cryptoc exchanges are centralized, which is mean there is some party who manage their money and it is not wrong to convey what is desired by the user and the exchange's team must warrant to their wanted.

if I see it now there is no insurance in cryptocurrency to eradicate cryptocurrency hackers then that is the first risk for people who use cryptocurrency as a payment method to buy trading goods and also very risky for investors who invest with other cryptocurrency so that for us cryptocurrency users are very careful careful in maintaining privacy for our own security so there is no hacking.

It takes to have a big company who will risk their name and their budget to provide this. Maybe when regulations happen there might be a insurer who will  do something like this maybe applicable only in their government. It will take a lot of process since insurance companies needs to provide KYC and interviews in anything I wonder what should be insured a wallet or all crypto involved in one owner or in an exchange. It will take time but I hope exchanges provide insurance in hacked accounts if its explainable how it happened.

I think so, crypto insurance is the next step to adopting crypto

I really hope that an insurer will appear on the cryptocurrency market that will change the situation for the better. But to begin with, the Exchanges must receive a package of insurance services.

BTC wallets you personally own which you have the private key is going to be an assurance that you won't be a victim of exchange hacking. Your wallet act as a bank like they've been saying. Why would you need an insurance for that?

There were projects about insurance in crypto but I don't see any of them actually getting much attention, they even become scam later.

good point, I was thinking about the same too
how would the service protect itself from insurance fraud claim
it would be hard to insure bitcoin which has pseudonymous transaction in nature
and by insuring our bitcoin, we surely have to do KYC with the service and lose privacy
when talking about insurance, everything seems to be the opposite of bitcoin principal :-\

If this crypto insurance becomes a reality, there will be a lot of conditions that needs to be met before a claim can be awarded. Imagine, someone filing a claim because his 5BTC was stolen, but he took the insurance when BTC was worth $10,000 USD, now that the price of BTC is down, he will just claim that it was stolen and he will be paid more than the current value of BTC. Just take a look at those business that are not earning money anymore, they will just burn down their shop and file a claim.

Indeed, it will be more difficult to claim, and I don't think we will have that crypto insurance, since the price is volatile it will be hard. For now, maybe we should not focus on it, but how can we adopt more people first to join crypto industry, and for businesses to use crypto as their payment options too.

Crypto Insurance will add another value in this cryptocurrency world, That's good thinking for the favor of this platform in order to get more flourish of this system, When you want to build a platform then you have to create a proper platform where everything should exist and so risk-taking system will enhance the people's courage, In recent time, a lot of people lost their worth investment in the ICO/IEO, if there was a risk-taker like an insurance agency then those people got some regulatory method and some policies regarding this issue, I think Insurance also may bring a proper environment for doing trading and investment, That's why it will bring a positive change in this platform for sure.

Tent to agree on your statement. Absolutely! That's a very big thing because we all know that bitcoin price is volatile and also many people will be careless on investing or sharing their bitcoin wallet or in trading as well because they know that they are insured and whatever happens there is an insurance in their back so that's not fair to the insurer.

In what ways does cryptocurrency insurance work? Is it when you get caught up with a scam? or when you experience losses when trading because of missed analysis? it seems impossible, things related to the internet/virtual completely like cryptocurrency is very risky. I don't think insurance companies will want to provide guarantees for it.
Moreover, cryptocurrency is very complex, synonymous, it's easy if someone wants to manipulate that the wallet has been hacked, right?

That is because cryptocurrency especially bitcoin is decentralized, the holder of control is entirely in our hands. We are the ones who have full responsibility for their safety. So we can conclude that insurance on cryptocurrency is not appropriate, not right on target, not suitable. In fact, as you mentioned, many insurance projects don't even get market attention.

insurance is a good thing and possible even with large fee it could be implemented.
but there are several questions and problems that need to be solved, for example, insurance agents usually do some investigations of the case before pay the insurance.
how to do it in decentralized and anonymous crypto world?
also there is question about your crypto origin, cause sometimes we do not have any  ::)