Ledger co-founder David Balland kidnapped in France

[NotATether]

So he has been released, but minus a finger? Wow it's like something in a Liam Neeson movie.

Or from a "Mission Impossible" movie (not notwithstanding the horror of this, I could barely bring myself to even open this thread after hearing about this).

[tbct_mt2]

But I don't know, there are funny comments in other community that our Ledger might be compromised.

I don't think that will be the case though, our wallet will still be safe as we have total control of it and not the co-founder.

It is partiall funny but it contains some truth about Ledger hardware wallet too.

It has some bad products like Ledger Recover, and it has bad reputation with many data leaks in the past. Ledger is not recommended hardware wallet after many accidents happened with them.

List of hardware wallet hacks.

[AprilioMP]

The good thing is that David and his wife is already safe, although reports says that his hands or maybe it was just a finger was mutilated.

It was already reported that they have paid the ransom in crypto, has been traced and frozen. And 10 people has been questioned already the authorities.

This is good news despite disappointment with their actions. This means that this incident has been planned from the beginning to the victim.
Luckily the life did not disappear even though the finger might be mutilated.
Indeed, in that country it turns out that like in the world of cinema, there are still many crime rates that require a hero as the main character.

[Helena Yu]

France has been known as one of dangerous country in EU due to accepting a lot of immigrant, the crime rate is really high.

As others have said, this is a good example that we should really take precautions and opsec very security.

How? the co-founder must expose himself to the public because he's a part of the company, it's no longer possible for him to protect his privacy, but he can only strengthening his security.

It's really hard to get privacy and money at the same time, only very small portion of people have this.

[hd49728]

France has been known as one of dangerous country in EU due to accepting a lot of immigrant, the crime rate is really high.

It's not issue if they accept legal immigrants, but they allowed many illegal immigrants to stay in their countries. Problems are from illegal immigrants who don't want to obey laws, and adapt to cultures of a new country.

Government in France seems to be weak and they are friendly with illegal immigrants because they don't want to lose votes. They want votes, and ignore issues that are bigger and more serious with time in their nation.

How? the co-founder must expose himself to the public because he's a part of the company, it's no longer possible for him to protect his privacy, but he can only strengthening his security.

It's really hard to get privacy and money at the same time, only very small portion of people have this.

Nowadays, it's really hard to find a project with anonymous founder and Ethereum, Binance with their renowned CEOs are examples. Projects with anonymous founders nowadays can be assessed as high risk of scam projects. It is easier to stay anonymous as users, than as founders.

[kryptqnick]

It's very good news that he was freed, and that it happened quickly. And based on Reuters article (thanks, Saint-loup, for quoting information from it) it looks like the criminals are facing justice already, which is swift and effective work of law enforcement in France. I'm really sorry Balland and his wife had to go through this experience.
And I don't think there's anything to learn from this, as violent crimes can happen to anyone. Ledger co-founder and his wife did nothing wrong.

[aioc]

As others have said, this is a good example that we should really take precautions and opsec very security.

Its one of the prices of being one of the big names in the industry. Kidnappers are making a shift toward kidnapping people who they think hold substantial amounts of valueable coins and tokens. They thought that it is easy as they only needed their passphrase.
Its good to know that he is safe and the perpetrators are caught. I don't think this is going to be the last, and there may be unreported kinnapping of people involved in trading and investing in cryptocurrency, so enhancing your privacy and being discreet is very important.

[Baofeng]

France has been known as one of dangerous country in EU due to accepting a lot of immigrant, the crime rate is really high.

As others have said, this is a good example that we should really take precautions and opsec very security.

How? the co-founder must expose himself to the public because he's a part of the company, it's no longer possible for him to protect his privacy, but he can only strengthening his security.

It's really hard to get privacy and money at the same time, only very small portion of people have this.

Yeah, I think the government itself of France has to blame for them to become one of the most dangerous country in Europe. And since it looks like the criminals was able to get their ransom although it has been tracked, for sure this will set a precedence, not just for high profile crypto personalities, but even just average joe investors could be the next targets by the criminals groups.

Well he could have hired bodyguards for protection, or at least some security escort when he is out of the public. As again, this news might change everything on how a CEO or co-founder should behave when they are out in the open.

[AML Soap]

It was very bad for him to find himself in such a chaotic situation, but that's the risk for people who hold cryptocurrency assets when their identities are known to the public, they just don't know when there will be danger that will target them in public. Because this is not the first time a famous person in the crypto industry has been kidnapped in public, in my city alone there was a bitcoin millionaire from Russia who was kidnapped and had to lose his assets. This is one of the reasons why it is important to maintain identity or protect yourself when in public, we just don't know when a bad day will happen to us.

This thread might serve to save some of our lives in the future. I was already on the fence about whether I wanted to ever become wealthy, and here is plenty of motivation to tame my goals and desires. 

[aylabadia05]

Not because the status of the kidnapped person is the founder of Ledger, but whatever the name of the crime with the mode that is carried out, I always condemn it, including kidnapping.

It could be that this kidnapping case was because the kidnapper thought he was a rich person who had many assets. So it is not wrong if people know Bitcoin with the known price updates will assume he has many assets that will be a good target for action.
Hopefully nothing happens to David Balland.

Agreed.
It's better to have not much print both in IRL and your cyber life, so to speak, to not be at such a risk of.. Physical assault and interest to the persona in question.

We are different with David Balland. David Balland the crypto public already knows who he is widely. From incidents like this that privacy really needs to be maintained, don't broadcast everything related to privacy on social media. The intention of uploading to social media is sometimes positive for fun, but behind that intention there will be certain parties who use it for crime.

[Orpichukwu]

It was very bad for him to find himself in such a chaotic situation, but that's the risk for people who hold cryptocurrency assets when their identities are known to the public, they just don't know when there will be danger that will target them in public. Because this is not the first time a famous person in the crypto industry has been kidnapped in public, in my city alone there was a bitcoin millionaire from Russia who was kidnapped and had to lose his assets. This is one of the reasons why it is important to maintain identity or protect yourself when in public, we just don't know when a bad day will happen to us.

This thread might serve to save some of our lives in the future. I was already on the fence about whether I wanted to ever become wealthy, and here is plenty of motivation to tame my goals and desires. 

The thing is, there is a position that you are going to occupy in the crypto space; either you are an exchange owner, a trader, a wallet developer, or whichever position that the public will know that you are rich, you can't hide yourself from being noticed. The only thing that you can do is to be going out with security to make sure that you are safe and mind the kind of place you go to in order to reduce this type of incident that is being discussed in this thread.

[TravelMug]

And just imagine though if the likes of CZ has been kidnapped in the future.

Or perhaps most crypto exchange owners right now are like having security and body guard than can rival head of state because they all know that they are the next target. This is not just a simple criminals, they are well organized if you look at how many individuals are involved here.

For the majority of us, we should be quiet and not let anyone that you are in crypto.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

But I don't know, there are funny comments in other community that our Ledger might be compromised.

I don't think that will be the case though, our wallet will still be safe as we have total control of it and not the co-founder.

Waitasec....are you not of the belief that Ledger exposed the fact that users' private keys could be accessed by Ledger after the Recover update regardless of whether you signed up for the service or not?  That seems pretty clear to me and to a lot of the regulars in the Hardware Wallet section.

All of that aside, I would not have wished for any Ledger employee to get kidnapped and held for ransom not matter how much of a scammy company I think they are.  I skimmed the first few posts here quickly and saw that the guy lost a finger in the ordeal?  Those kidnappers weren't fucking around, eh?

For the majority of us, we should be quiet and not let anyone that you are in crypto.

Probably good advice there, but I could tell people I own some bitcoin and if they kidnapped me and found out the exact amount I had they'd probably forget the ransom, forget about stealing that laughable number of sats and just kill me.  To wit: it's all a matter of how rich you are and how many wealthy friends/family members you have who could pay to secure your release.

[Elites25]

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/23/Wf4Dg.png

https://x.com/le_Parisien/status/1882393967695708449

This could be the biggest physical attacks on a crypto personalities as it was reported that David Belland, co-founder of Ledger wallet was kidnapped in France, but he was released. Reports are still sketchy by this time, not sure if they paid ransom or what.

I understand that kidnaps are not to a particular set of people or a particular geo-territory but that of a specific and significant person as the co-founder of Ledger is of immense concern.

Looking at it from different lenses will further explain the worries assigned to it. For reasons of the importance of what Ledger stands for in the crypto space, the possibility of divulging classified information in exchange for his life, the possibility of compromising the finances of Ledger's customers are far more dire than considerations bothered around family ties as possible causes and personal rifts with friends, etc.

France isn't a city that has a porous security framework and kidnapping of high-profiled individuals on its soil is rare, this gives the crypto space something to look at in terms of the exact cause of the kidnap.