Armed robbers have raided the house of a British virtual currency trader

[dothebeats]

Just asking, would the government make an action about this? Would it be possible to return the stolen amount the person?

If bitcoins are regarded as a legal tender/asset in your country, it would be possible to make a report to the police about the incident and conduct further investigation about the matter. However, if your country don't have any laws regarding bitcoin as an asset, chances are you won't have any say about the event but would just be a living example that even crypto isn't safe from these criminals since they'd still have a way to get your precious coins no matter how hard you keep it.

You guys do understand the fundamental flaw of this whole story right? Don't name your highly speculative lucrative company after yourself, that is a good way to avoid most of this mess happening I believe .

That is if you're dealing with cryptos, perhaps? It's really hard to leave your personal trail on the internet since there's a high possibility that your identity would be used in illegal activities or be target of a highly organized crime group especially if you're prominent in a community or whatnot. Lesson learned, I guess?

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[BartS]

This is really shocking. Not only hackers are very active targeting unsuspecting victims, but it looks like they took it to the next levels. Criminals are now hunting bag holders in this case a currency trader which they know holds a lot of bitcoins in their wallet. This will clearly set precedence to other criminals to track down people who have stash huge amount in their bitcoin wallets. As much as we want to avoid it, we are helpless at this point. Pointing a gun at your face is very scary and the best thing to do is really give them your private key and your crypto portfolio. I really do hope that they catch this criminals and locked for good.

This is one big disadvantages of bitcoin since everything is public and is there in the blockchain, the criminals are sure to use this information to target people in the future, and as bitcoin becomes more valuable it is safe to say events like this will become more common, this is why it is important to not brag too much about your bitcoin holdings.

[figmentofmyass]

3 months ago, one of the biggest Turkish exchange owner had kidnapped and forced to give private key of the cold wallet. Kidnappers stole 150 BTC. So this news is not the first physically stolen Bitcoins via force. I am sure there were some other robberies too.

i hadn't heard about that one. but 2 months ago, a director at EXMO (exchange set up in the UK that caters to people in russia/former CIS countries) was kidnapped and held for a $1 million ransom. the ransom was paid in bitcoins and he was released.

the scary thing about all these cases? they all involve victims who were targets just because of their involvement with cryptocurrency. because of their jobs.

a reminder: don't announce your holdings to anyone except your closest loved ones and trusted friends. and if you want to get involved in the industry as someone with custodial access to lots of crypto......think again. it's obviously a dangerous occupation.

[Hendrahendri]

It is a problem that is very rare in the world krypto, I think this is just the first time happened since bitcoin it there and I do not believe the thought why it can happen, it was a bad experience hopefully the future more berhati myself again.

[hachiman13]

I believe this guy's identity might have been leaked thru exchanges databases or other platforms that needs KYC. If not, only his close relatives, friends would have known his involvements in the cryptocurrency space. Either of this two might be the cause.

[stompix]

Just asking, would the government make an action about this? Would it be possible to return the stolen amount the person?

Nope, and certainly not the government since this is strictly the law enforcement job.
Because unless they will manage to get them, and their wallets there is no way to return those coins.
And it's going to be a pain in the ass even if they do since the victim will also have to prove he owned that much coins in the first place and that they indeed did steal them from him.

If bitcoins are regarded as a legal tender/asset in your country, it would be possible to make a report to the police about the incident and conduct further investigation about the matter. However, if your country don't have any laws regarding bitcoin as an asset, chances are you won't have any say about the event but would just be a living example that even crypto isn't safe from these criminals since they'd still have a way to get your precious coins no matter how hard you keep it.

It doesn't matter if they are regarded as legal tender or not.It's still robbery.
If you come to my house and you steal all my dwg files for example from my computer or erase them, it's not a crime?

That indeed is worrying, and this is why Bitcoin will always be a safe. If those people had gold, they would have no faith, but Bitcoin actually permits to track the bitcoins. Yes I have to agree it will be hard, but always possible.

It's a hundred times harder to sell 10 kilos of gold than mixing 100 BTC.


Back to the story, I just knew this pic had to be saved.


I wonder what would have happened in the case of a multisig address with the second one stored in some safe place.

[patt0]

Well I actually think this is a big issue that needs to be solved, so that people can feel secure while they hold bitcoin at their homes. As we all know bitcoin is not really anonymous, so if robbers manage to link btc address to people, the they can see how much money they have, and they can plan an assault. They can then physically threat the BTC owners and force them to make a transaction to them. If they are fast enough, they can easily cash out the coins, or can try to send them to multiple addresses in order to make it difficult to track them as they move the coin around.

Although I prefer cryto to banks from many reasons, this is still one big argument that favours banks or centralization over bitcoin. It's harder to make these kind of assaults with fiat, because they are held at the banks, and you can't just transfer big amounts like that.

[sofi@]

This sounds interesting, how come those robbers learn about the ownership of that crypto trader as we all know we trade anonymously. I think the person who did that know the victim very well because our bitcoin can be save in our wallet without the knowledge of any people around us unless we disclose it to them. Well anyway I don't think government will ever help them since it is not regulated but this should be a lesson for crypto holders, we must be very careful in giving information to others.

[AdamRay]

I think the victim of the robbery attack is a celebrity in the crypto market because as you know crypto investment is anonymous and there is no reason the robbers can know the victim is having the bitcoin number big to attack. I think it's a bit risky to brag about investing in crypto and bitcoin on social networks.

[panjay]

I read a joke about this robbery they said that will not happen if the victim store bitcoin at Kraken, because it so god damn slow to access even,

joke aside.

the more reason to not talk about crypto IRL, I mean with that's information only you can get a gunpoint by someone close to you.

[Toden1379]

This will be the downside for bitcoin when it comes to being taken from you. Unlike fiat money which is backed by the government, I doubt that they can return the cryptos stolen, being that it might have already been sent out to everywhere. Bitcoin is anonymous and it is digital goods not yet recognized by the government. They can file criminal charges against the perpetrators for threatening them at gunpoint but proving ownership of those cryptos may pose a problem.

[darkangel11]

You guys do understand the fundamental flaw of this whole story right? Don't name your highly speculative lucrative company after yourself, that is a good way to avoid most of this mess happening I believe .

They are making this thing look like crypto holders are suddenly becoming a target. They are not! Robberies like that have been happening all around the world and those targeted were wealthy businessmen that were known to have cash in the house. Crypto used to be ignored since robbers were unfamiliar with technicalities and didn't want to risk it going down in value before they can sell it. Cash was much easier to steal and launder.

[7788bitcoin]

I feel like there's an interesting and important angle to this news story that I'm missing. If someone can spot it, please point it out to me!

On the positive side, its good no one got hurt. Does anyone think he'll have his funds returned by law enforcement?

The biggest mistake he did was to publish his home address as his office address and any robber who is familiar with crypto currency have carried out this plan because they think that the transactions cannot be traced and so on,either way the risk of informing others about your stock or business will always attract danger .

[SaShiRaJaVu]

3 months ago, one of the biggest Turkish exchange owner had kidnapped and forced to give private key of the cold wallet. Kidnappers stole 150 BTC. So this news is not the first physically stolen Bitcoins via force. I am sure there were some other robberies too.

i hadn't heard about that one. but 2 months ago, a director at EXMO (exchange set up in the UK that caters to people in russia/former CIS countries) was kidnapped and held for a $1 million ransom. the ransom was paid in bitcoins and he was released.

I thought this was the first incident regarding physically taking the bitcoin with force,the cases of these sort of intrusions are increasing on a daily basis and around the globe you have to be careful to whom you are revealing about your assets,because the possibility to steal your money and go invisible is a possibility as most of the countries have not legalized bitcoin or any currency and the investigation is not that easy for a virtual object,unless the robber makes a mistake.

[torch2121]

I felt sorry about him. This is the reason why I want it to be low profile. Earn big while low profile. Not arrogant on blessing what I will receive.

[BartS]

Well I actually think this is a big issue that needs to be solved, so that people can feel secure while they hold bitcoin at their homes. As we all know bitcoin is not really anonymous, so if robbers manage to link btc address to people, the they can see how much money they have, and they can plan an assault. They can then physically threat the BTC owners and force them to make a transaction to them. If they are fast enough, they can easily cash out the coins, or can try to send them to multiple addresses in order to make it difficult to track them as they move the coin around.

Although I prefer cryto to banks from many reasons, this is still one big argument that favours banks or centralization over bitcoin. It's harder to make these kind of assaults with fiat, because they are held at the banks, and you can't just transfer big amounts like that.

This is northing really new, this is the same as if you were carrying with you jewelry and a bunch of cash, bad people will notice it and will target you and your family, the difference is that your bitcoin balance is there for everyone to see, so if you want to avoid something like this to happen to you need to make an effort to not link your real identity to a bitcoin address holding a huge amount of bitcoin that way you cannot be specifically targeted for these kind of criminals.

[mamichula]

I think this is an important story because I feel most people don't think about these kinds of dangers. I know this was a known exchange guy, but I see a lot of people on Facebook talking about cryptos and that just makes them a target of criminals.

[jefbigbob70]

Regal RA DMCC - the first company in the Middle East with a license to trade crypto-currencies and the world's first with cold storage.

On February 13, the Dubai Multi-Purpose Commodity Raw Material Platform issued the first license in the Middle East for the trading of Regal RA DMCC crypto-currencies. Immediately after the licensing of its own activities in the crypto currency area, a subsidiary of Regal Assets announced the opening of the world's first offline (cold) storage for digital assets. Information on this is posted on the official website of DMCC.

https://www.dmcc.ae/news/worlds-first-deep-cold-storage-crypto-commodities-launched-regal-assets-dubai

[Kevin77]

3 months ago, one of the biggest Turkish exchange owner had kidnapped and forced to give private key of the cold wallet. Kidnappers stole 150 BTC. So this news is not the first physically stolen Bitcoins via force. I am sure there were some other robberies too.

i hadn't heard about that one. but 2 months ago, a director at EXMO (exchange set up in the UK that caters to people in russia/former CIS countries) was kidnapped and held for a $1 million ransom. the ransom was paid in bitcoins and he was released.

the scary thing about all these cases? they all involve victims who were targets just because of their involvement with cryptocurrency. because of their jobs.

a reminder: don't announce your holdings to anyone except your closest loved ones and trusted friends. and if you want to get involved in the industry as someone with custodial access to lots of crypto......think again. it's obviously a dangerous occupation.

That pretty much says it. It does not only happen to those who are cryptocurrency holders alone anyway, it has always happened even before then where kidnappers demand ransom in fiat based on how valuable or wealthy the person is in the society. However, it seems they are beginning to see cryptocurrency as the easiest way to demand ransom and stay anonymous without being traced.

[anzhanbei1214068]

Because of the popularity of cryptocurrency, some people became rich.

They had better keep a low profile. One of the disadvantages of bitcoin is anonymity, which allows more criminals to take advantage of it.