Silly and scary questions, and what would you do if that were you.

[demonica]

Even if you gave them your keys, I doubt that they will keep you alive. Cause they already got what they want, so what's the point of keeping you alive? Once they can have access to your Bitcoin, it means that they'll have enough money to protect themselves even if they kill you. They're bad guys so how can you trust them to keep you alive after giving them your Bitcoin? Also, if other trusted family members know your Bitcoin, and you got killed by not giving it to the kidnappers, they can target your family as well. In this kind of situation where money involves, you can't be sure that you'll be safe even after giving them what they want.

The best thing to keep you and your Bitcoin safe is to keep it private. The bigger the amount, the more private you should be. No matter if it's a relative or a close friend.

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[Dunamisx]

I may not be perfect but I know well the calibre of the kind of people I walk with, you can't expect me to be around the same kind of positive thinking minds and yet be afraid, also, I don't think it's wise for you to allow people around you to specifically in now what am upto.

Aren't you going to give the bad guy your wallet address, and you let him get killed. However, your Bitcoins remain safe because you have given your wallet address to someone you trust.

Or you will give it away because you still want to live, and you don't have any more Bitcoins.

At this point one have to be wise, if you try any shit with these guys they may end up killing you, so it's better they even get access to the wallet and later after the whole show, you're being alive and can get another bitcoin with time

[btc78]

If you have quite a handful of bitcoin one good thing to do as more of a precautionary measure is to not have all of your bitcoin in just one wallet it might be a little inconvenient but if this were to happen you would at least want a few of your bitcoin left if hypothetically you gave the kidnapper access to your wallet

[bobbybkk]

Of course the investments should be kept hidden.  Because if you are an investor who knows it, then you can be attacked in different ways.  Can be logically or logically attacked. Only people close to you can harm you at times. If you have a large amount of bitcoin holdings.  Then you can be kidnapped.  And your wallet can get hacked.

Like if you decide to dump your wife / girlfriend and she decides a kind of severance payment would be appropiate and she is well informed about your bitcoin holdings.......

Should take her about 30 minutes in a dodgy bar to find guys willing to assist her....

[Z-tight]

and this will probably mean storing your seed words in a place different than your house, this way you can reduce to zero the chances of any of your friends or family members finding out about your bitcoin holdings which could put your life at risk.

If you do not trust your friends and family, i wonder what location outside your home that will be safe for you to store your seed phrase, except you have a private home elsewhere that nobody lives in, and very few people have such privileges.

If you do not have any safe and secure location outside of your home, then you just have to store your seed phrase in your house, but with great opsec to go with it. It is worth mentioning that adding extra layers of security provides better security of your funds, layers like extending your seed phrase with a passphrase or creating a multisig wallet.

[Justbillywitt]

Now, let us not get things confused here. You gave out your wallet address to your family and the people you trust, and anyone with the address can view what the wallet holds and cannot move out of what is inside. So aside from you, do any of your family members you trust have access to the wallet? If the person appears not to be found any day, can your family access the wallet with your phrase?
 
Then again, in a situation like this, you never can tell if you give out this wallet if they will still let you leave or treat you as trash after they get what they want. One thing is to ask for it, and the other is for them to keep their own side of the deal, so you have to take the risk involved here in order not to lose it all at once.
 
If there is some sort of guarantee that if you give out that wallet access to them, you will be set free, then the best thing will be for you to do that, as your safety and life matter more than that bitcoin. If you are alive and in good health, you can always acquire more.

Honestly there is nothing bigger than life. For me I won't even think it twice or delay. I will give them the wallet the moment they ask for it. What good is my Bitcoin to me when am dead? My family members I gave my wallet phrase will sell of the Bitcoin the moment am dead. I rather stay alive without Bitcoin than leave behind Bitcoin that I will not see how it sold and where the money will go. Upon that my children will become fatherless and my wife a window who will later remarry.

[fuguebtc]

and this will probably mean storing your seed words in a place different than your house, this way you can reduce to zero the chances of any of your friends or family members finding out about your bitcoin holdings which could put your life at risk.

If you do not trust your friends and family, i wonder what location outside your home that will be safe for you to store your seed phrase, except you have a private home elsewhere that nobody lives in, and very few people have such privileges.

If you do not have any safe and secure location outside of your home, then you just have to store your seed phrase in your house, but with great opsec to go with it. It is worth mentioning that adding extra layers of security provides better security of your funds, layers like extending your seed phrase with a passphrase or creating a multisig wallet.

But I think there is no safer place than our own home, because if we no longer trust our loved ones, who will be worthy of our trust? Life is confusing, many people even consider money more important than family. Bitcoin is just money and how can they consider it more important than their family?
In my opinion, people who are always suspicious even of their own loved ones will never trust anyone, including themselves, and they are also unreliable in everyone's eyes .

[mirakal]

Give them what they want. You can fight back that's a bit risky but have your firearm concealed all the time. Shoot when the opportunity is on your side.
If you want to prevent this from happening then just don't share with anyone that you have Bitcoin. I don't know if the stories about people getting kidnapped and ask their passwords at gunpoint were true but it's very possible especially if you share information on social media.

Sharing anything that criminals can assume you have some tremendous amount of wealth means you can be targeted.

Exactly. There’s no point defending our bitcoin asset if we’ll also be killed, so just give them what they want and you might be free after that. Although there’s no assurance that you won’t be killed after you give them your wallet address, but in this type of scenario, it’s better to think positively than keep on doubting them.

There are a lot cases like this being reported and most likely, the kidnappers end up killing their victims. But if you were in the shoe of the victim, for sure you will just follow their order by not trying to go against them, otherwise you will get tortured until your last breath. That’s kinda worse but it’s certainly happening to some of the hostages.

[m2017]

There was a recent thread about this case, looking at the answer, it's either you create a multisig wallet, extended passphrase, or just having more than one wallet.

If the situation develops according to the scenario described by OP, then neither "multisig wallet" nor "having more than one wallet" will help. You'll have to part with something. Although the attackers are determined to deprive you of your wallet, they can also deprive you of your life. Or both to cover tracks.

But if someone getting kidnaped when he only have one wallet and the attacker know about that, well it's better to let your money go than your life.

There probably needs to be a mechanism to protect against this, like blocking the wallet (which is basically impossible), but marking the wallet address would not hurt (so that exchangers and other P2P users know that these bitcoin are stolen).

[batang_bitcoin]

There are ways that these people will know that you are a bitcoin holder. If you're someone that keeps on posting some charts or anything related to cryptocurrencies on your social media, then that's the best way that they'll know if someone is into this market and are an investor.
That's the reason if you're posting related to crypto on your social media accounts, it's best to just remain lowkey and keep them private because it's a financial matter that you should keep private.

Of course the investments should be kept hidden.  Because if you are an investor who knows it, then you can be attacked in different ways.  Can be logically or logically attacked.  Only people close to you can harm you at times. If you have a large amount of bitcoin holdings.  Then you can be kidnapped.  And your wallet can get hacked.

Not only people that are close to you but also random people that can be friends of your friends or just whole random strangers. That's why with every move you do, you have to be careful with everything that you do especially when you're feeling like bragging about your investments on the web, you shouldn't really. It's going to be scary when you do that and don't think about the consequences that might happen.

[Essential10]

If I don't say how many bitcoins I have or how many bitcoins a person has there is no way to tell. OP, I personally think the scenario you mentioned is very unlikely to happen. But accidents can happen in any way in life. Such situations are more likely to be faced by acquaintances, because they know everything about you personally. kidnappers will knowingly hijack everything, be it a single account or multiple accounts. However, if faced with such a situation, after understanding the situation, if I realize that giving a bitcoin wallet can save lives, I will give it. And if there is a fight to survive, then I will fight. Since this kind of talking is coming here I would say everyone should handle bitcoin, bitcoin wallet carefully on their own initiative.

[Rufsilf]

Yes, it is frightening, but to start, if you keep your bitcoin wallet secret, nobody will be able to find out that you have a significant amount in it. You could prevent these situations or things from happening if you kept your possessions and your ownership of Bitcoin to yourself. Telling others you talk to in person or online could cause them to get triggered to do so.
In a situation like that, I would rather die than have the goods I have been working on stolen. After all, I think my family members would benefit from it in the future, and since one of them actually knows my wallet address, I don't mind as long as they are secure. Rather, the fruits of all my labor will go to those robbers who are so greedy that they never deserve it. I should keep it because, well, there's a chance that even if I give them my wallet address, they could still kill me.

[AakZaki]

Not only people that are close to you but also random people that can be friends of your friends or just whole random strangers. That's why with every move you do, you have to be careful with everything that you do especially when you're feeling like bragging about your investments on the web, you shouldn't really. It's going to be scary when you do that and don't think about the consequences that might happen.

The most important thing is that anything related to your identity, information about your assets, etc. must be completely kept confidential. Don't upload it to the public because it will become a digital footprint that cannot be erased. Many foreigners will certainly be stalking someone who has great influence and appears to have quite a lot of assets. posts that show graphs, total assets and profits will make them curious and make them targets for hacking. So you have to be careful in doing everything in cyberspace.

[electronicash]

Not only people that are close to you but also random people that can be friends of your friends or just whole random strangers. That's why with every move you do, you have to be careful with everything that you do especially when you're feeling like bragging about your investments on the web, you shouldn't really. It's going to be scary when you do that and don't think about the consequences that might happen.

The most important thing is that anything related to your identity, information about your assets, etc. must be completely kept confidential. Don't upload it to the public because it will become a digital footprint that cannot be erased. Many foreigners will certainly be stalking someone who has great influence and appears to have quite a lot of assets. posts that show graphs, total assets and profits will make them curious and make them targets for hacking. So you have to be careful in doing everything in cyberspace.

not just foreigners, it's the locals that are more dangerous. since they can pretend they are from the same city and send you a friend request on social media. i think this will actually be a common crime one day just like the divorced women scam who are targeted because they are lonely and some hunk befriended them and asking for money.

i would actually want to create a dummy account and post some edited photos like i'm a miner, i think i will be getting lots of hotties sending me pms.  of course they are also men pretending to be chick.

[oktana]

It’s only if you’re careless that people will know that you have Bitcoin. Imagine the fact that Satoshi, the creators of Bitcoin are anonymous till date that it has increased so much in value. It’s because of their security too. So I think we should follow his steps too and be anonymous. And you know there’s a mentality around Bitcoin in which people think that anyone who has a Bitcoin wallet has a lot of money, even when many normal people are worth way more than that. Don’t let anyone know.

[Despairo]

Even if you gave them your keys, I doubt that they will keep you alive. Cause they already got what they want, so what's the point of keeping you alive? Once they can have access to your Bitcoin, it means that they'll have enough money to protect themselves even if they kill you.

You're wrong, when a robbery is stealing someone else money, the punishment won't be as big as make someone dead. Moreover it's easier to hide the stolen money than hiding the dead body and your trace. Haven't you see it in your country? where the police caught killers than robbers.

So I think we should follow his steps too and be anonymous. And you know there’s a mentality around Bitcoin in which people think that anyone who has a Bitcoin wallet has a lot of money, even when many normal people are worth way more than that. Don’t let anyone know.

If you're use a centralized exchange, you're no longer anonymous.

[LimitFoundation]

Now, let us not get things confused here. You gave out your wallet address to your family and the people you trust, and anyone with the address can view what the wallet holds and cannot move out of what is inside. So aside from you, do any of your family members you trust have access to the wallet? If the person appears not to be found any day, can your family access the wallet with your phrase?
 
Then again, in a situation like this, you never can tell if you give out this wallet if they will still let you leave or treat you as trash after they get what they want. One thing is to ask for it, and the other is for them to keep their own side of the deal, so you have to take the risk involved here in order not to lose it all at once.
 
If there is some sort of guarantee that if you give out that wallet access to them, you will be set free, then the best thing will be for you to do that, as your safety and life matter more than that bitcoin. If you are alive and in good health, you can always acquire more.

[letteredhub]

One thing that bitcoiners needs to know is "keep your source of income a secret and private matter", something that should be to yourself alone, let people see that you are not poor, you're making income somehow but don't don't how or where it's coming from. That's how a bitcoiner ought to live.

Kidnappers have two options in mind, either to get what they want  or kill you if you're preventing them from getting what they want. So in that situation giving out your seed phrase is what should be the best reasonable thing to do. It's when there's life that there will be hope to make money. The motivation should be that, if you can make that amount then you can also make more of that if you're alive.

[Zoomic]

One thing that bitcoiners needs to know is "keep your source of income a secret and private matter", something that should be to yourself alone, let people see that you are not poor, you're making income somehow but don't don't how or where it's coming from. That's how a bitcoiner ought to live.

Kidnappers have two options in mind, either to get what they want  or kill you if you're preventing them from getting what they want. So in that situation giving out your seed phrase is what should be the best reasonable thing to do. It's when there's life that there will be hope to make money. The motivation should be that, if you can make that amount then you can also make more of that if you're alive.

I see many on social media who openly declare themselves Bitcoin lords and queens, I laugh , what OP said might be just a mere conversation but it actually happens in real life. People actually believe Bitcoin holders are multi millionaires when in real sense, some are actually struggling to make profits. I won't really blame those who think this way about Bitcoin holders, afterall, you gave them this impression about you. No one will attack or harass you if you do not give them a reason to do so. People need to learn how to keep certain information about their personal lives private, carelessness will only expose them to more danger.

If for any reason I am being attacked and my life is at stake,  why should I struggle with them? I will rather fight to stay alive than fight to protect my wallet. Life has no duplicate you know, Bitcoins lost can always be recovered.

[roller33]

I became worried and found it difficult to answer after my friend asked me scary and ridiculous questions about Bitcoin ownership.
he asked. If friends, new acquaintances, or other people find out that you have a sizable amount of Bitcoin, and you don't tell them. Then you are kidnapped with several people covering their faces, with the aim of getting your wallet address with the risk that if you don't give it you will be killed.
And another reason, you have given your wallet address to members you trust, such as family members or your wife and children.

And I want to know, what are you going to do.
Aren't you going to give the bad guy your wallet address, and you let him get killed. However, your Bitcoins remain safe because you have given your wallet address to someone you trust.
Or you will give it away because you still want to live, and you don't have any more Bitcoins.

And it was just a casual conversation with a friend of mine who both owns Bitcoin, and I was just wondering what other people's answers to this dreaded question made me want to create a thread.

In a situation where I got kidnapped and there's only 2 options (give BTC or DIE) I'd probably give out.

I mean, as soon as you know the path, this can't be stolen. And I believe that no owner of several BTC would be so silly at a point where there's only BTC as his money.