Crypto Crime Is the Future. Bank Heists Are History.
A rise in physical attacks on digital-asset holders says a lot about the trade-offs of a cashless society.
Hard money.
Photographer: Romain Costaseca /Hans Lucas /AFP/Getty Images
With Bitcoin reaching a new record, it shows more investors are getting swept up in the dream of “being their own bank” via tokens that can be transferred instantly and anonymously outside the traditional financial system. Yet at the same time, there seems to be too little awareness of the cost of being your own bank security guard in a cashless world.
A recent double-digit rise in crypto-exchange hacks and a wave of brazen crypto-executive kidnapping attempts — with the latest taking place in broad daylight on the streets of Paris — has put the industry on edge and ramped up interest in security, according to Bloomberg News, with 23 such attacks recorded this year by one database (up from six over the same period last year). They have resulted in grisly mutilations, like severed fingers, and have pressured the French government to do more to stop them, even if statistically France scores relatively well on crimes like homicide.