It’s not just your wallet, watch or Louis Vuitton purse that thieves have their eye on now.
As the popularity of bitcoin skyrockets across the globe, crooks have pivoted to getting their hands on your virtual currency as well. Six-figure holdups have become routine now, according to a New York Times report, with one Russian tourist being blindfolded and forced to transfer $100,000 in bitcoin last month while in Thailand.
The relative obscurity of cryptocurrency transactions — payments are sent to digital “wallets” that correspond to a lengthy numerical address, rather than a username — adds an extra layer of protection for the perpetrators. It also makes returning the stolen money to the victims a tall task.
“For this, the advantage of bitcoin is that it’s hard to verify,” a Thai police investigator told the Times. “We asked the victim how to track it since they know bitcoin better than us. We asked them how to check the receiver. They said there is no way. It is hard to do.”
Similar attacks have become more commonplace. Weeks earlier, the head of a bitcoin exchange in Ukraine was held hostage for $1 million. In December, a man in New York City was kidnapped by a “friend” until he forked over a $1.8 million ransom in Ether, the second-most popular cryptocurrency. And last fall, a Turkish businessman was forced by an armed gang to give away his passwords to his digital wallets — with the thugs making off with about $3 million in cryptocurrency.
The rise in cryptocurrency prices in the last year has been followed by a spike in cryptocurrency robberies, and many “crypto rich” people are still grappling with how to best protect their investments. Some have set up a “duress wallet,” or small lump of money, to throw perps off the scent of their bigger nest egg. Others, like Jameson Lopp, told the Times they’ve set up security cameras and bought automatic weapons to safeguard their investment.
“If you are rich and you own real estate, or stocks or a sports team, somebody can’t mug you and take your sports team away,” Lopp told the Times. “Having liquid crypto assets makes you much more attractive for that type of criminal attack.”
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.