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Cryptocurrency hunt: physical attacks on holders up 33%
Сryptocurrency
Crypto criminals are increasingly targeting not digital wallets, but their owners themselves: the number of violent attacks is rising worldwide.
So-called wrench attacks, in which criminals force victims to hand over cryptocurrency, have become more common this year. According to a new report from blockchain cybersecurity company CertiK, 52 physical attacks on cryptocurrency holders were confirmed globally in the first half of 2026. This is a 33% increase from the previous year. France, with 33 cases, accounted for almost two-thirds of all publicly known incidents. Since many attacks go unreported, the true scale of the threat is likely higher.
Criminals are attacking more frequently, choosing larger targets, and obtaining more loot. The total amount of recorded losses and ransom demands has risen to approximately $124 million, up from just $10.5 million the previous year. "This trend suggests that attackers are increasingly convinced that physical coercion can produce disproportionately high returns," write CertiK researchers, noting that this has changed the "economics of crime."
For many years, the primary concern was protecting blockchains and private keys from hackers. Now, operational security in the traditional sense has become paramount. According to Junhui Gu, co-founder of CertiK and professor at Columbia University, modern attacks combine online data collection with actual violence:
"It's truly a combination of cyberattacks, social engineering, and physical violence."
The main shift has been the increase in residential attacks: 20 cases were confirmed in the first six months of 2025, compared to just one in the first half of 2025. In March, a married couple in the Parisian suburb of Le Chesnay-Rocancourt was beaten at home and forced to transfer approximately $1 million in Bitcoin. In the UK, a victim was forced to hand over $24 million in cryptocurrency, which was then converted into the Monero token. Home attacks have supplanted kidnappings as the fastest-growing form of violence (16 kidnappings during the period compared to 12 the year before).
The increase in losses also indicates increased selectivity among criminals. They spend more time comparing blockchain records, leaked customer databases, social media profiles, and publicly available data to build profiles of victims.
"Once they connect cryptocurrency holders with personal information like home addresses, home attacks become possible," says Gu.
Many incidents are now linked to organized crime. A single case can involve recruiting a local group, using data brokers, and then transferring the stolen funds to launderers, with the physical risk shifted to the rank-and-file perpetrators. French investigations have also uncovered cases of remote recruitment of minors.
France has become the epicenter of this trend: a large crypto ecosystem, a number of large-scale data breaches, and more thorough incident reporting than other hot spots. Local authorities claim the actual number of attacks is significantly higher: according to the Minister of the Interior, there were 77 between January and June. The United States ranks second (four cases), while Sweden and the United Kingdom each have two.