Quote from: _act_ on May 05, 2025, 09:05:39 AM

Crypto owners that are known to the public are getting targeted in France. You can remember the co-founder of French crypto-wallet firm Ledger, David Balland, was also kidnapped with his wife in January from their home in the region of Cher of central France.

This should serve as a reminder to many of us here, especially some of us with huge amounts of Bitcoin in their portfolios, that talking about your Bitcoin holdings in public is very risky because people are targeting Bitcoin investors globally, not jut in France or Europe; it can happen anywhere in the world because people now know the value of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. As a result, their holders need to be careful because kidnappers can demand huge amounts of money as ransom because they will believe that there is money.

Quote from: sokani on Today at 03:20:29 PM

Quote from: Mia Chloe on May 05, 2025, 10:29:49 AM

I believe crypto holders are targeted more because these thieves have discovered that it's more difficult to track crypto than regular fiat transactions that con be traced very easily across banks.

Actually, crypto is not too difficult to track. Blockchain analytic companies like Chainalysis, Elliptic etc, have shown that cryptocurrency can be easily traced. However, I think the reason criminals prefer crypto in carrying out nefarious activities is because it has greater anonymity. Traditional banking makes use of bank accounts tied to users identity, and as such, they can be easily identified, while crypto does not. It makes use of wallet addresses that are not tied to their identity. Another reason is that crypto is accessible and cannot be frozen (except those issued by centralized entities and the ones on CEXs).

How is it easy to track crypto?
I think the wallet addresses are not attached to our identities, so even if they are able to locate the address containing the coin, if it is a decentralized wallets, tthey can't get the owner unless some CEXs that might share information if been pressured by government if the needs arises.