The corpse is so obvious but it cannot be said often enough. Be careful when sharing how many cryptocurrency you have. Even if you have dozens of bitcoins and you want to shout this from the rooftops, don’t do that. There are plenty of malicious people who want to get rid of your crypto. The most recent example is from Norway.
Armed robbery
On 8 September, the Norwegian TV 2 channel reported that a Norwegian man over 40 had jumped from his balcony to escape an armed robber who had foreseen it on his bitcoin.
Although his name was not disclosed, it is clear that he had been dealing with cryptocurrency for ten years. He did not hide that he has earned more than 100 million Norwegian kroner in those ten years. That is around eleven million euros.
Lie down or I will shoot
According to TV 2, the attempted theft took place on May 14. The suspected thief has entered the victim’s residential complex and just rang the doorbell. When the door was opened, the cask of a gun was pressed into his face.
The indictment states that the suspect threatened the victim: “Lie down or I shoot.” However, no shot was fired, the victim tried to escape by jumping from the second floor of the balcony. Officially, the victim’s private information was not disclosed. It is, however, whispered that this is the owner of a crypto company.
Incident or not
This looks like an incident and maybe it is. But there are more and more incidents. In Norway alone, three cases are known where perpetrators demand cryptocurrency from their victims. In 2018 a crypto trader was stabbed in Norway and just before that the wife of the Norwegian billionaire Tom Hagen was kidnapped, criminals demanded ten million dollars in monero.
There was such a horror story in February, but then in the Netherlands. Three armed men, posing as agents, tortured a 38-year-old man with a drill for hours. According to criminal lawyer Peter Plasman, the perpetrators tried to find the private keys. The victim was the owner of Travelflex, the corresponding coin is also mentioned by CoinMarketCap.
Take safety measures
If there is already a lesson to be learned from the above incidents, you should not shout from the rooftops how many bitcoins or altcoins you have. That is really no different than if you have a well-filled bank account. Having lots of money is fun, but you’d rather not share that with strangers.
And with regard to bitcoin, the receiving address changes after every transaction. Make use of this by always entering a different address if you buy bitcoin from, for example, BTC Direct. All addresses and transactions can of course be followed on the blockchain, but these addresses are not directly linked to a person. If you often switch reception addresses, it is even harder to find out how much bitcoin you have.
It is also advisable to use a hardware wallet from Trezor or Ledger (or another brand). This ensures that you keep your private keys offline and that hackers cannot access your login details online. Do you really want to go next level? Then you can protect your private key with a 25th word.
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