WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:09.890 Crypto kidnappings, otherwise known as wrench attacks, are on the rise. We have seen people get kidnapped, tortured, and worse in the United States. 2 00:00:10.420 --> 00:00:17.100 Abroad, we saw a major crypto kidnapping ring leader arrested in Morocco just this week. 3 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:26.800 Colin and I are gonna break down what's going on, why these are happening, do some case studies, 'cause some of these are still going on, and then tell you how you can protect yourself. 4 00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:34.700 Bitcoin Season two is brought to you by Arch Network, the platform building bridgeless apps on Bitcoin. More on Arch later on the show. Let's kick it off. 5 00:00:35.220 --> 00:00:50.580 [upbeat music] This is the single most dangerous thing you can imagine if you own Bitcoin or crypto, at least in a metaphorical sense. 6 00:00:50.720 --> 00:01:02.700 I, I think maybe a nine millimeter might be a little more dangerous. [laughs] But this is cheap, and it hurts if it makes contact with any part of your body- Yeah... especially with some force behind it. 7 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:10.640 Don't find yourself trying to bring a nine mil to a wrench fight. Okay, this is... that's a dumb... [laughs] Okay, so what is a ren- what is a, what is a wrench attack? 8 00:01:10.860 --> 00:01:18.060 Right now, crypto kidnappings are, like, in top of the news right now. Um, Colin, what... it's a k- wrench attack. What, what is it? 9 00:01:18.420 --> 00:01:27.060 It's a common saying within Bitcoin and crypto, and I don't know where it originates from, but the basic idea being, you know, what do you need to get some... 10 00:01:27.100 --> 00:01:34.040 uh, what do you need to hack into someone's wallet or get their seed phrase? All you need is a five-dollar wrench. 11 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:48.670 It's basically a brutal way of saying if somebody has a blunt object and wants to extract information out of you, they can do so by means that are medieval and long practiced by all manner of degenerates throughout human history. 12 00:01:48.700 --> 00:01:57.160 So it's basically just a saying that, you know, if someone has a motive, and they're evil enough, and they find you, and they know that you have crypto, 13 00:01:58.360 --> 00:02:10.600 they can get your seed phrase, or they can get your, uh, access to your accounts by means of torture or some similar kind of, uh, like I said, medieval method. Yeah. 14 00:02:10.660 --> 00:02:37.520 And- And it's because, like, um, you can have the best personal security ever, but, um, this does become a human problem because with crypto, with Bitcoin, and the ability to secure your own money, to be your own bank, to hold your own private keys, that also means that if you are forced under duress to send that away, it's irrecoverable. 15 00:02:37.540 --> 00:02:45.920 And so it's the easy... it's the, it's a single point of failure in a lot of cases. It, it's still this huge systemic issue because yeah, we have certain fallbacks. 16 00:02:45.980 --> 00:02:58.540 We can do counterparties and custodians, but, like, the trade-off is clear. If you are gonna self-custody or if you have access to these funds, uh, they can be wrenched out of you. 17 00:02:59.600 --> 00:03:08.440 Yeah, and we're gonna go through a number of case studies today, and I... just a few things that I want people to keep in mind as we do this, I'm not trying to scare anyone. 18 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:19.200 We're just trying to, as Jameson Lopp, the co-founder of Casa, who has kind of curated a large list of these things, he's very much a security-minded person. 19 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.060 As he's drawn awareness to this, we wanna also draw awareness to it. 20 00:03:23.600 --> 00:03:35.980 You know, it's kind of like reading articles about rare forms of cancer or, like, a freak accident on a vacation or, like, some unwitting tourist slips off of a cruise ship and gets devoured by a great white or something, right? 21 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:43.160 Like, they can seem very sensational, but it's just a reminder to try to make sure that your house is in order, right? 22 00:03:43.540 --> 00:03:53.240 If you're traveling somewhere and you own Bitcoin or crypto, keep that stuff on a cold wallet that is offline, not on an account, not on a hot wallet. 23 00:03:53.300 --> 00:04:00.580 Uh, don't wear Bitcoin shirts out, and just generally don't advertise where you're going or flaunt your wealth. 24 00:04:00.620 --> 00:04:07.600 This is something that is a huge problem that we see outside of Bitcoin and crypto too, of some of these influencers on TikTok or Instagram. 25 00:04:08.100 --> 00:04:19.800 They're, like, lounging up against Aston Martins, you know, and renting out massive villas, and they tr- they let people know where they're traveling to next, and they end up getting kidnapped and extor- extorted. 26 00:04:20.140 --> 00:04:26.220 And it's also... it's not limited just to grand- grandiose displays of wealth. Like, we saw the CEO of Ledger, 27 00:04:27.380 --> 00:04:43.000 fairly innocuous, not particularly remarkable public figure, but he is the CEO of, I believe, the most popular consumer, uh, hardware wallet, uh, device. Got... He, his, his, uh, family got kidnapped, as well as did he. 28 00:04:43.880 --> 00:04:46.820 Or there were, there were attempted kidnappings or abductions. 29 00:04:47.280 --> 00:05:05.620 And again, again, some groundwork, um, listener, um, it is right now, and probably going forward, much less likely that these types of things are, uh, going to happen to you than it is for commonplace scams, phishing attempts, and screw-ups on your end. 30 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:19.160 So you should consider your, like, prioritization accordingly. It's much more likely that you get scammed, phished, or you trade away your wealth, um, than it is for this to happen to you. 31 00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:33.700 Yet, this is a fun and wild s- wild topic to talk about because it's scary, it's sensational, and there is... we will wrap this up with a wild ongoing story about the kidnapping in New York. 32 00:05:33.760 --> 00:05:46.920 Let's talk about why Jameson Lopp, who, just quick shout-out, he's really been drawing a lot of attention to these things and bringing awareness to this issue, so we'll be drawing from some of his resources on GitHub and also his Twitter for some of these stories. 33 00:05:46.960 --> 00:06:01.160 But why did Jameson Lopp start indexing these attacks in the first place, Charlie? Yeah. So Jameson Lopp has a GitHub that he's been tracking, um, the known crypto wrench attacks, and it, it's... 34 00:06:01.180 --> 00:06:09.540 there's more, there's more data points on it every week.But the reason he started doing this is because, and this is public, so he's talked publicly about this, he's written publicly about this. 35 00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:26.900 Jameson Lopp, back in twenty seventeen, was swatted. For those who don't know, this is kind of an internet term for whenever a SWAT team is baited into coming to someone's house. That means tactically, 36 00:06:27.900 --> 00:06:41.800 someone who wishes ill on you will make a phone call or something and pretend to be you so as to lure the relevant local authorities to send a SWAT team to your house. 37 00:06:42.300 --> 00:06:51.740 And it can be-- And these things can end badly where some-- there have been people who have been killed by the SWAT team unfairly and innocently because they freaked out. 38 00:06:51.840 --> 00:07:04.240 They, it was, uh, it was, uh, just poorly handled. And, um, we've seen this a lot in like, um, video game streamer culture. Again, it's pretty dark, but this can happen in targeted attempts. 39 00:07:04.280 --> 00:07:12.220 And in this case, during the Blocksize War, Jameson Lopp was a very controversial figure, and someone, uh, sent a SWAT team to his house. 40 00:07:12.300 --> 00:07:21.440 Now, he was luckily at the gym at the time, getting swole, working on his, reducing his, uh, uh, his overall risk surface area. 41 00:07:22.290 --> 00:07:31.940 And he talks about this, and this is one of the reasons why he's kind of started writing good foundational, uh, writings and guides on like best practices and how to reduce and avoid these. So, 42 00:07:32.860 --> 00:07:46.120 um, that's one like kind of concept and why this has, uh, been better cataloged as of late. One thing to add to that, I think, just for those who don't know what the Blocksize War was, it was a two thousand sixteen, 43 00:07:47.070 --> 00:07:56.460 um, era disagreement. I guess two thousand fifteen, two thousand sixteen, uh, era disagreement in Bitcoin on increasing the block size or not increasing the block size. 44 00:07:56.540 --> 00:08:03.480 I'm not going to get into the details, but it was a very hot and vociferous debate, a lot of sour grapes still. 45 00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:19.300 And the swatting attempt against, or the swatting rather against Jameson Lopp is a good example of why it's still such a hot topic and why there are still so many poisonous memories of that time with a lot of these Bitcoiners, so. 46 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:23.100 But when you look at these attacks, I really kind of boil it down. 47 00:08:23.140 --> 00:08:35.820 I mean, there are shades here and there of differences, and there are probably a few more categories you could give, but there are really like three main categories in terms of the targets, or rather the profile of people being targeted. 48 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:49.220 First one that we will tackle is a well-known crypto entrepreneur and/or their family or just a well-known personality within the Bitcoin and crypto space that is singled out, kidnapped, extorted, tortured, etcetera. 49 00:08:49.780 --> 00:09:06.520 The second is kind of just, uh, your average Joe finds him or herself in a bad situation where somehow an attacker has either properly guessed or figured out that they hold crypto, and they end up extorting them for the money. 50 00:09:06.530 --> 00:09:27.180 The third I would call, uh, you know, a kind of trade or business deal gone wrong, where it's either two counterparties that know each other or someone who has lured another person, a victim, into a certain space, um, with the pretense of facilitating some sort of trade or business deal, ends up extorting them and attacking them for their Bitcoin. 51 00:09:27.540 --> 00:09:40.260 So we'll kind of go through all of those and give a few examples, um, and end with that one on like the business deal gone wrong. We'll start with the well-known crypto entrepreneurs or, you know, personalities. 52 00:09:41.020 --> 00:09:46.800 And do you want to start with the Ledger one? I feel like that's been- Yeah, this is a really good anchor point... profile one. Yeah. 53 00:09:46.810 --> 00:09:59.720 So as you were saying, Charlie, this is-- I mean, this was at the beginning of the year, and it was, uh, David Vallon, the co-founder of Ledger, who no longer works there, ended up having fingers cut off, and he and his wife were kidnapped in Paris. 54 00:10:00.660 --> 00:10:13.800 And, um, eventually, I think they found the guy who orchestrated this in Morocco. That was just- Yeah... that news broke recently. Just this past week. Yeah. Yeah, but they ended up extorting him, um, for... 55 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:25.199 I don't know if they ended up getting anything out of him. They didn't, they didn't give details, no. Legendary. I mean, I-- heart out to David and his wife. That sounds awful. I hope that they're recovering okay. 56 00:10:25.660 --> 00:10:38.000 Um, nice to know that they caught the guy or, you know, the band, the brigands who did this, and also that they didn't end up losing anything. But they were under, you know, cu- they were in-- kidnapped for a few days. 57 00:10:38.640 --> 00:10:45.180 That's it from the article. Yeah, a few days. They cut off his thumb or something like that. Yeah. It said in this article, his hand was mutilated. 58 00:10:45.220 --> 00:10:54.960 And I, I quote from the article, "Vallon and his wife were kidnapped early on Tuesday morning from their home in central France and were taken by car to two separate addresses where they were held captive. 59 00:10:55.680 --> 00:11:01.400 Uh, Vallon, who Ledger said no longer works for the company, was rescued after a police operation on Wednesday, and his wife was freed the following day. 60 00:11:01.500 --> 00:11:12.050 During the kidnapping, kidnappers contacted another Ledger co-founder and demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency, part of which was paid." So their ransom was paid, but that was by Ledger itself it seems. 61 00:11:12.060 --> 00:11:24.140 The rescue operation involved more than ninety officers and France's tactical police. Vallon's wife was found tied, but tied up but uninjured in a car on Thursday. This is back in January. 62 00:11:24.240 --> 00:11:38.520 So, and- And, and this was a profess-- So this is the thing, this is a professionally organized crime. Yeah. This is a professional organized crime which has, as its target, well-known, uh, owners of crypto and Bitcoin. 63 00:11:39.100 --> 00:11:49.820 And so this is not just like Joe on the street, two buddies getting drunk one night being like, "Hey, we should go get that guy." No, this is [laughs] well, that probably also happens. 64 00:11:49.880 --> 00:12:02.060 [laughs] Um, but, uh, no, this is like actual like strategic, organized international crime rings because, um, a lot of stuff is currently happening internationally. 65 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:18.950 A lot of the, I would say, modern European countries with, uh, increased international in, uh, presence in them, you see a lot of that happening there. So France would beUh, understandable. Yeah, 100%. And you also see 66 00:12:20.450 --> 00:12:30.240 this spill over to people's families. So there's another... There's an article from NBC, uh, that was run earlier or a month ago, on May 4th. 67 00:12:30.310 --> 00:12:40.670 Father of cryptocurrency entrepreneur rescued after being kidnapped for ransom in France. They do not list who this person is, kind of like to see that. I mean, it's already been a he- nightmare for them already. 68 00:12:40.710 --> 00:12:46.990 You know, don't need to publicize them any more than they already... Uh, don't need to publicize them any more if they've already been through the wringer like this. 69 00:12:47.510 --> 00:12:59.470 But so I don't know who the entrepreneur was, but his father w- ended up being kidnapped. There's another article that Lop lists in this, uh, in this GitHub repository, which we'll link to in the show notes. 70 00:12:59.850 --> 00:13:11.210 Crypto influencer's father was kidnapped on New Year's Eve. And then there was another one that happened pretty recently, um, attempted abduction of crypto exchange CEO's daughter in broad daylight caught on camera. 71 00:13:11.239 --> 00:13:19.810 Attackers were fought off by her partner, um, and bystander. Uh, and, and that, that's a great video, uh, actually kind of lifts your heart up. 72 00:13:19.930 --> 00:13:30.220 Um, it's terrible to see, but they're, this girl and this, um, man are walking. Believe the-- that headline said partner. I saw at some point... 73 00:13:30.540 --> 00:13:35.370 I, I when I saw this originally, someone said that it was actually the, um, the friend of the father. 74 00:13:35.970 --> 00:13:43.650 Uh, regardless though, he's like hunched over this woman, and these guys are, you know, like beating on him, trying to get to the girl. And then you love to see it. 75 00:13:43.790 --> 00:13:50.910 These random guys on the street just come over- You gotta love... start vigilante, like drop kicking and haymakering these guys. 76 00:13:50.950 --> 00:13:59.670 And- Every, every guy's fantasy is to like, see a fight that's very clear they can go and somehow win and, and it be like recorded. Actually, m- yeah, it'd make a difference. 77 00:13:59.710 --> 00:14:06.250 It's like that meme where it's like, why do guys say they wanna bleed out in a place like this? [laughs] And it's just this snowscape. But yeah. 78 00:14:06.310 --> 00:14:14.290 So some of these end, end, you know, they're still terrifying, and they're unfortunate and traumatic experiences, but some of them have happier endings than others. 79 00:14:14.300 --> 00:14:23.550 Like that one, the s- the CEO's daughter didn't end up getting kidnapped, and the would-be perpetrators or perpetrators rather, would-be kidnappers ended up zooming away. 80 00:14:23.590 --> 00:14:37.239 But, um, just a good reminder, too, that it's really better to be low-key. And, you know, for some people who are founders or influencers or podcasters, [laughs] this is, uh, easier said than done. But 81 00:14:38.690 --> 00:14:40.890 yeah, you don't wanna be flaunting this stuff. 82 00:14:41.210 --> 00:14:59.450 And if you look at a lot of the GitHub that Lo- Lop has, um, the majority of the attacks, I would say, um, at least the high-profile ones and the ones with the bigger dollar signs tend to be people who are well-known or founders, um, big executives or influencers in the space, so... 83 00:14:59.530 --> 00:15:08.250 [upbeat music] Let me tell you about one of the most slept-on opportunities in crypto. Arch is building fast composable DeFi apps on Bitcoin. 84 00:15:08.720 --> 00:15:19.270 Arch apps tap into the OG blockchain with by far the most liquidity and best brand in crypto. I've known the team for over a year. The tech they're building is solid, and they are racing towards mainnet. 85 00:15:19.530 --> 00:15:30.970 There's DEXs like Saturn, meme coins on FunkyBit.Fun, instant loans on Cha-Ching, and so much more. Plus, they're rewarding testnet users. So join me in trying out Arch while it's still early. 86 00:15:31.990 --> 00:15:35.730 Yeah, I'll actually pull this up here. So if you're listening, um, we... 87 00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:47.290 I pulled up the actual GitHub, which is a GitHub project which Jameson manages, which, um, logs known, uh, crypto physical Bitcoin, physical Bitcoin attacks since early. 88 00:15:47.690 --> 00:15:54.710 You know, this actually starts with Hal Finney, uh- Getting swatted... being swatted back in twenty fourteen. 89 00:15:55.510 --> 00:16:06.710 A lot of people don't know this, but yeah, similar thing, SWAT team, um, uh, and it, uh, people had, uh, apparently attempted to extort him and his wife. 90 00:16:06.830 --> 00:16:17.030 Um, so it's, it's kinda wild, and there's some, you know, names we, we might recognize on here over the years. But, um, you can see most of this stuff happens internationally. 91 00:16:17.110 --> 00:16:27.860 Most of it happens in, uh, Europe or, uh- That's one of the things that I was wondering about. I feel like every time I see it, it's in France or somewhere in Europe. Yeah. 92 00:16:27.860 --> 00:16:35.489 Um, there are quite a lot in- One's Southeast Asia... South America too. Yeah, As- Southeast Asia as well. And these really start kicking up. 93 00:16:35.730 --> 00:16:42.370 Maybe there's just more, uh, eyeballs on them, but you start seeing them pick up a little bit in twenty seventeen, and then last bull market in the twenty twenty- Yeah... 94 00:16:42.390 --> 00:16:54.250 twenty twenty-two, they really, really start ramping up. But, uh- Yeah, you can see there's, yeah, way more attacks. The news is better. The news pipeline's better, like equ- identifying them and telling the story. 95 00:16:54.610 --> 00:17:03.450 And the thing is, like Jameson says that, um, there are some people who request not to be on here, so this doesn't log everything. And- Mm-hmm... you know, think about it. 96 00:17:03.670 --> 00:17:16.970 Y- you know, if this happened to you, a lot of people, probably myself included, would not want it to be, like even if everything did turn out okay, probably wouldn't want it to be a story or really publicly associated because what does that benefit you? 97 00:17:17.010 --> 00:17:26.770 It only like, you know, it's socially difficult, and it may even make you a target in the future. So yeah. So we see a lot of these. And I mean, there's, there's some crazy story. 98 00:17:26.980 --> 00:17:38.150 It's crazy stories like, um, uh, mining facility in Paraguay. Three Chinese citizens entered Paraguay illegally, tried to rob a mining facility, got in a shootout with police. 99 00:17:39.690 --> 00:17:49.750 Uh, r- uh, in Seoul, South Korea, Russian nat- nationals lure victim to hotel for crypto trade, attempt to rob him of one billion won. Victim escapes. 100 00:17:50.750 --> 00:18:03.620 Um, France, police arrest ten men in balaclavas foiling their attempted kidnapping of a crypto entrepreneur. Like, these are doozies of stories. Um, 101 00:18:04.590 --> 00:18:12.390 you know, again, this probably won't happen to you, but these are-- this is a major trend that's starting to happen, and it- One hundred percent... 102 00:18:12.410 --> 00:18:16.080 and, and it cross-- You know what's funny is it crosses like the normie news chasm. Yeah. 103 00:18:16.090 --> 00:18:30.386 This is one of those st- This is one of those like topics thatUm, like my mom emailed me about it this morning, and, and this is a thing I think because people see it. I saw Coffeezilla epis-- uh, report on it yesterday. 104 00:18:30.466 --> 00:18:35.646 He covered it too. Yeah. And yeah. So like it's very resonant 'cause people can wrap their heads around it. 105 00:18:35.986 --> 00:18:46.285 Yeah, and it's super salacious, and I think there are different takeaways from like the normie camp versus the Bitcoiner and crypto camp. For the normie camp, it's like, "See? There's no recourse for your crypto. 106 00:18:46.426 --> 00:18:54.026 If someone steals it, there's no way to just roll it back. You can't contact the bank. You can't, you know, claim fraud or things like that." 107 00:18:54.726 --> 00:19:08.326 Whereas for the Bitcoiners, it's a reminder that OPSEC is really, really important. Um, and speaking of that, sometimes... But I will say this much, sometimes OPSEC maybe isn't enough or doesn't even matter. 108 00:19:08.426 --> 00:19:24.446 I mean, most of the times it will help you, but this is a good segue to move on to one of the more wild cases, which is this one of a American tourist who was en route to Spain and had to stop in London and 109 00:19:25.526 --> 00:19:32.266 somehow found himself out of a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of investments in cryptocurrency. 110 00:19:32.866 --> 00:19:43.706 This headline reads, "American tourist in London loses one hundred and twenty-three K in crypto after quote, 'drug-enabled abduction by fake Uber driver.'" This one is really wild. So this guy was in London. 111 00:19:43.746 --> 00:19:55.486 He was en route to Spain. He had like a two-day layover. He's a software engineer from Portland, Oregon, and he was at a bar. He ordered an Uber, and 112 00:19:56.446 --> 00:20:03.826 a fake Uber pulled up that called out the alias he used on the app. I don't know, maybe it was Jacob. 113 00:20:03.886 --> 00:20:15.266 Even if, regardless, how did the guy know his num- how did the guy know who he was unless he was working with the other Uber driver? And this guy pulled up, asked him to sit in the front seat. 114 00:20:15.896 --> 00:20:26.126 This guy Jacob said, "Oh, he's really friendly, seemed really chill." Then he offers him a cigarette [laughs] which is, you know, it's kind of interesting. Like so many things- Welcome, welcome to the UK. 115 00:20:26.426 --> 00:20:38.406 Uh, would you [laughs] I g- I guess. We still smoke in cabs here, you know? And, um... But so many things had to go right for this, this scammer and this, uh, kidnapper to actually hit the jackpot here. 116 00:20:38.506 --> 00:20:54.746 Um, the cigarette was drugged, and through the process of being drugged, Jacob ended up transferring or opening up his apps, unlocking his accounts for his, uh, whatever brokerage platform he used for his crypto and things like that, and he ended up losing all of the money. 117 00:20:55.506 --> 00:21:08.186 The reason why I highlight this one is to me it shows that either one, some of these guys are super advanced, like how did this fake Uber driver know who-- his name? How did he know where to pick him up? 118 00:21:08.846 --> 00:21:19.946 You know, I don't know if there was some way that he was con-- he was in contact with the actual Uber driver, if somehow he had an eye on, if there was like some sort of malware where he had an eye on Jacob's phone. 119 00:21:20.566 --> 00:21:32.726 Regardless, super sophisticated and also ended up being pretty convoluted with the cigarette and getting all of his accounts drained. And this is again to highlight just a normal guy, you know. 120 00:21:32.966 --> 00:21:38.746 Somehow they knew that he had investments on his phone or had cryptocurrencies. Maybe they just made a guess, I don't know. 121 00:21:39.446 --> 00:21:47.426 But th-this one to me is, was really kinda crazy because again, low profile guy, lot of things had to go right for it to be pulled off. 122 00:21:47.526 --> 00:22:02.066 And there are, you know, if you go through Lop's GitHub, there are a few others like this where it's just kind of, you know, some dude traveling somewhere and then boom, ends up getting extorted for hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of Bitcoin, which is again, a good ex-- a good re, um, reminder. 123 00:22:02.386 --> 00:22:07.966 Like just do not travel with a lot of money on your phone. Don't, don't do it. 124 00:22:08.766 --> 00:22:27.476 Well, and, and you know, there are, this, this go, this, we would get eviscerated by the hardcore, um, by a lot of hardcore folks if we didn't, um, you know, mention that there is a spectrum of self-custody approaches you can have. 125 00:22:27.526 --> 00:22:36.746 You can have like, uh, certain multisig setups. You can have time, uh, timed withdrawals. You can have delayed withdrawals. 126 00:22:36.786 --> 00:22:43.526 You can, um, you know, shout-out to Rob Hamilton with AnchorWatch and like their particular mini script vaulting setup. 127 00:22:43.566 --> 00:22:54.926 Like there are options, um, but these are still all, you know, along the spectrum of things that you can, can control, and it's not like, um... 128 00:22:55.506 --> 00:23:04.126 And most of these products and almost all of crypto does not have a similar like fraud protection or FDIC-type back-backstop. 129 00:23:04.806 --> 00:23:17.076 Um, the, you know, it's, uh, as NVK of Coinkite says, um, you do the wrong thing and money gone. And, and that's like a, that's like, it's just gone. You can't like get it back. 130 00:23:17.146 --> 00:23:29.196 And so because crypto, crypto assets are a bearer asset, this is why they are so powerful in the hands of people and why it is such a easy target and low-hanging fruit. 131 00:23:29.906 --> 00:23:41.886 Um, the, the basic rule of thumb is this, the rule of, the rule of severed thumb is [laughs] of, uh, these will only increase as the price of bitcoins goes up. 132 00:23:42.746 --> 00:24:00.346 So, um, there are-- We can, um, we can touch on the most wild story and then we can, uh, maybe at the wrap up with, uh, basic best practices from James and Lop. Yeah. [upbeat music] Hey. 133 00:24:00.466 --> 00:24:10.026 Will here with Blockspace Media. Did you know that we have individual feeds for all our shows? If you're watching The Mining Pod, Bitcoin Season 2, or The Court Show, be sure to check out the individual feeds. 134 00:24:10.406 --> 00:24:19.056 You can find them on your podcast player of choice, whether that be Spotify, Apple, YouTube, et cetera. Just type in Blockspace Media and you'll find all our shows pop up. 135 00:24:19.126 --> 00:24:22.696 Or just type in the individual show name, like The Mining Pod or Bitcoin Season 2. 136 00:24:22.946 --> 00:24:39.974 Be sure to hit that subscribe and give us a five-star rating so we can continue to bring you the best content in BitcoinLet's, let's close on the Kentucky Crypto King. Th-this story has a little something for everyone. 137 00:24:40.034 --> 00:24:48.794 It's got an Italian tourist, it's got a thirty thousand to forty thousand dollar per month penthouse suite in New York, it's got crack cocaine, 138 00:24:49.754 --> 00:25:03.344 it's got a Kentucky man who can afford, or maybe not, maybe this is why he's extorting people, a super expensive penthouse in New York and is trying to extort a man that he's done business with. Yeah. 139 00:25:03.344 --> 00:25:11.014 So this goes back to our third category of people you have done business with or a trade gone wrong. So take it away, Charlie. 140 00:25:11.394 --> 00:25:21.154 So feel free to interject or stop me when I s- when I say something wrong, 'cause I may not... I'm, I-- This is kind of a hard story to- Yeah... um, to, to explain. 141 00:25:21.194 --> 00:25:48.594 But basically, Italian national Michael Valentino Teofrostro Carturan, age twenty-eight, was held for seventeen days in a luxury apartment on Prince Street by, um, John Walz and William Duplaisse, um, who, uh, tied him up and tortured him and extorted him for an estimated twenty-eight million in crypto. 142 00:25:48.694 --> 00:26:00.594 Now, John and William, the abductors and torturers, are actually known, like, uh, figures, I believe somewhere in the investment or venture space in crypto. 143 00:26:00.634 --> 00:26:10.534 In fact, I was listening to the Castle Island podcast with Nick and, uh, Matt, uh, and, uh, one of them actually knows who those guys are. 144 00:26:11.054 --> 00:26:17.014 And the funny thing is they were actually, I believe, not very well, uh, liked in the crypto space. Obviously- You don't say. 145 00:26:17.114 --> 00:26:29.614 [chuckles] I'm gonna say if you're the type of person to cr- to kidnap and torture, I imagine you're probably a shitty business person too. So, um, yeah. So that's the TLDR of what happened. 146 00:26:29.774 --> 00:26:42.183 Now, the details surrounding this, as they are revealed, get wilder and wilder. What was the first detail or two that was, that emerged from this, Colin, if you remember? 147 00:26:42.974 --> 00:26:56.984 First of all, apparently this, this Italian guy and, um, Jo- uh, John Walz, uh, however you pronounce that- However you say the name... um, they had done business with each other in the past, but 148 00:26:58.194 --> 00:27:02.154 the amount of stuff that goes on in this is just kinda crazy. 149 00:27:02.894 --> 00:27:13.194 From the New York, uh, Post article, I don't know if it's the same one you're reading from, said, "Suspecting of torturing an Italian businessman with a chainsaw, the sadistic week-long attempt also involved, um, 150 00:27:14.094 --> 00:27:27.534 being, him being tied up with an electrical wire and tortured. He was tased at one point, he had a gun pointed to his head, and he was also dangled from the balcony of the penthouse at one point." Like, like a mob movie. 151 00:27:27.594 --> 00:27:36.884 Like a- Yeah... this is like a caricature of a mob movie. Yeah. Send us the crypto. [laughing] You know? Um, and I don't wanna make light of this too much because it's a terrible thing. 152 00:27:36.884 --> 00:27:46.474 It's like that scene with, uh, Adam Sandler in, uh, Uncut Gems. Yeah. [chuckles] It's like that's exactly what it's like. Yeah. They threatened to cut his limbs off with an electric chainsaw. 153 00:27:46.534 --> 00:27:51.134 He was forced to take cocaine at some point, according to this article. 154 00:27:51.234 --> 00:28:00.474 And, um, from this New York Times article, "The nightmare erupted from a dispute over cryptocurrency in which the suspect allegedly tried to extort millions of dollars from the man," blah, blah, blah. 155 00:28:00.614 --> 00:28:14.864 Apparently, when the Italian came to his house, he, uh, he, uh, seized his passport and then locked him up, and the weeks-long, uh, torture session ensued. So, so one... So there's a couple things. 156 00:28:14.934 --> 00:28:32.854 So first of all, um, the, the captors, the captee's parents, uh, are referred to as reclusive by this New York Post article, only learned of the kidnap, I believe, like two weeks after it happened, when a family friend informed them. 157 00:28:33.874 --> 00:28:46.514 Um, they also, uh, had n-not, like, uh, this, this, their s- their son, they didn't really, uh, apparently they d-didn't seem to know what he did, but he'd been traveling internationally a lot. 158 00:28:47.254 --> 00:29:06.734 Um, but the family said, uh, the rep- the New York, New York Post says, quote, "The family were seemingly on high alert prior to that and had recently hired private security," and who had also put up their very nice fancy home, I believe in Italy, near Rivoli or near Turin, up for sale. 159 00:29:07.974 --> 00:29:15.654 And then, uh, some of the family may have been threatened during that kidnap period. This is, this, this is wild. 160 00:29:15.754 --> 00:29:26.974 So also, recently, um, thanks to TMZ, now that TMZ is covering crypto, we are probably gonna get out of a job, Colin. Um- [both laughing]... 161 00:29:27.014 --> 00:29:38.434 we, uh, there are some videos which emerged of the, the victim, quote, "Seemingly partaking in parties at the house and talking about drugs," while he was, like, tied to the wheelchair. 162 00:29:38.514 --> 00:29:47.704 Like, apparently, I might be getting the specific details, like he was, like- Oh... doing something with crack cocaine with like an air fryer, [chuckles] 163 00:29:47.834 --> 00:30:01.054 I think, like, while visibly like, uh, like tied to his, like, chair or something. Uh, oh, you got the video. Yeah. I've got the video up here. Thank you, James and Lop. 164 00:30:01.134 --> 00:30:13.594 Again, also another Jame- classic James and- I'm curious how they got this video. Um, I didn't dig into it, but- [laughs] TMZ. [laughing] [beep] Oh, that's so wack. [beep] Oh, that's so wack. What is going on? 165 00:30:13.974 --> 00:30:24.454 [laughing] They look like they're having a blast. So for the listener, this is, uh, the dude in ta- tied to a chair with an air fryer. 166 00:30:25.034 --> 00:30:33.894 He's cooking crack cocaine in an air fryer, apparently, which I didn't even realize you could do that. I guess with enough heat you can do anything. [chuckles] But- 167 00:30:34.874 --> 00:30:48.134 I don't presume to know how you make, uh, drugs, so- I don't eitherBut needless to say, really weird case. The video is strange. Again, I don't know where, uh, how that surfaced. 168 00:30:48.674 --> 00:30:57.194 Uh, apparently it's five days into the incident. Anyway, the video really kind of calls into question some of what's going on here. We're not gonna speculate. 169 00:30:57.274 --> 00:31:09.114 We don't know what's going on, but we will wrap up with best practices from Lopp so that you can avoid cooking crack cocaine in an air fryer. Yeah. 170 00:31:09.174 --> 00:31:19.394 This is-- I would definitely also like to avoid this myself, so we're going to leave you with, um, uh, basically a basic place to start for resources. So 171 00:31:20.294 --> 00:31:34.414 this comes from Jameson Lopp's blog, blog.lopp, L-O-P-P,.net, and it's the blog named Modest Privacy Protection Proposal, where he talks about privacy in general, and then he talks about privacy goals. 172 00:31:34.994 --> 00:31:47.074 So because privacy for most people is not completely entirely achievable, you can think of it as, as insulating yourself from certain tiers of attacks or tiers of scrutiny. 173 00:31:47.734 --> 00:31:58.434 And, um, Lopp defines four major levels of privacy protection. The one, the first one would be how to protect yourself against the average person who knows how to search the web. 174 00:31:58.554 --> 00:32:10.464 Basically, make yourself difficult to, like, find out, know a bunch of stuff from simple Googling. Um, the next one would be protect yourself against someone with resources to hire a cheap private investigator 175 00:32:11.534 --> 00:32:22.614 and someone with, with indefinite funds to indefinitely fund a top-tier private investigator, and then the one which is protection against agents of nation-states with nearly unlimited funds. 176 00:32:23.154 --> 00:32:40.694 Just for the general listener out there, the basics for the first one, the, the first tier of insulate yourself from, from being easily, easy to Google and easy to figure out, uh, there are ways you can make it difficult or obfuscate to know where you live. 177 00:32:41.334 --> 00:32:54.154 You can make-- You can take some basic social media hygiene to make it so that you, your specific whereabouts, where you're going to be on specific days, especially if you're traveling internationally, are difficult to identify. 178 00:32:55.014 --> 00:33:07.034 You don't want to be posting specific locations or habits, and then you want to have some basic, uh, protection on phones or things that you use to secure crypto assets. 179 00:33:07.234 --> 00:33:20.614 So, um, this would be basic 2FA, um, basic hygiene with by not carrying too much crypto along with you with ac-direct access to it, with yours through your mobile device. 180 00:33:21.394 --> 00:33:26.533 You can get a little more paranoid by, like, o-obfuscating where your mail goes. 181 00:33:27.154 --> 00:33:36.944 You can hide ownership of property, not for tax purposes, but rather, um, so that people don't know where your primary residence is or where places you might be are, 182 00:33:37.934 --> 00:33:43.034 and then things like, um, protecting your name and keeping a low profile. So those are just, like, the basic... 183 00:33:43.094 --> 00:33:51.974 It sounds a little bit like common sense stuff for, like, if someone were to think about what they would do to, like, reduce a lot of the public footprint. 184 00:33:52.314 --> 00:34:02.314 But I do recommend this article, um, and then he provides further research and further things you can do beyond that once you have that basic stuff. 185 00:34:02.894 --> 00:34:15.134 I'll tag you, and I see you trying to- I don't have really anything to add. I think that sums it up. I think just make sure your online hygiene is good. Don't flaunt your wealth. 186 00:34:15.634 --> 00:34:26.834 Don't wear Bitcoin shirts and swag out-outside of your home. Just try to... I think the biggest thing too is, like, just do not keep a lot of crypto on your phone. Don't keep it on exchanges, 187 00:34:28.594 --> 00:34:36.864 and if you do keep it on exchanges, don't. [laughs] Yeah, well, it's a double-edged sword. Like, we wanna- Yeah... 188 00:34:36.894 --> 00:34:46.054 encourage people to self-custody, but then, like, you've gotta self-custody in the right way, and then- Yeah... there's all these other risk factors. 189 00:34:46.074 --> 00:34:55.634 The thing is, I, you know, I keep coming back to this, this, this tried-and-true, like, mantra, which is, um, it's actually really easy to buy Bitcoin. 190 00:34:56.114 --> 00:35:09.894 It's difficult to hold on to it for a number of reasons: um, your own failure to be disciplined, your own greed, uh, to trade or acquire more, um, phishing or scam attempts. 191 00:35:10.334 --> 00:35:17.334 It can be difficult because you'll have life things which cost you that money. That would be a good reason to, like, take care of a life expense. 192 00:35:17.694 --> 00:35:30.434 But then you have things like, uh, wrench attacks, and that was the-- that's what we talked about today. So listener, um, we encourage you to self-custody, but to DYOR, do your own research. Be prepared. 193 00:35:30.534 --> 00:35:39.694 Think about how you're gonna do these things. Uh, yeah. So, uh, Colin and I do not purport to be experts on this, so make sure you follow other people for these things. 194 00:35:39.704 --> 00:35:50.514 We are simply the talking heads who are gonna tell you that this is happening so that you, listener, can go do your own research. Thanks so much for listening. We just pretend to be experts. Yeah. 195 00:35:50.544 --> 00:36:05.234 That's, maybe that's part of our, uh, optics, so. That's, that's the life of a journalist and a podcaster. Exactly. Right. Yeah. We're poor, poor podcasters. Um, uh, there's- I lost all my money to, uh, Geo Boden. 196 00:36:05.834 --> 00:36:12.114 Uh, I put my life savings into Geo Boden, and then Biden dropped out, and now I'm penniless. Thanks, Biden. 197 00:36:12.754 --> 00:36:25.854 Yeah, I bought, um, I thought I was buying Bitcoin, but I was buying the ticker Bitcoin, uh, Obama Sonic, Harry Potter, Obi-whatever, Eno. So. [laughs] So technically I have been DCing Bitcoin. 198 00:36:25.894 --> 00:36:33.254 It's just the wrong Bitcoin. [laughs] Okay, well, shout out to all the people listening to this. Uh, uh, don't trade away your wealth. 199 00:36:33.354 --> 00:36:50.674 Don't get your wealth stolen, and, uh, uh, see you at a quarter-million-dollar Bitcoin. Peace. [outro music]