FRANCE HAS LOGGED MORE THAN 70 CRYPTO KIDNAPPINGS THIS YEAR — THE LATEST TAPED UP A FAMILY WITH KIDS 8 AND 12 — THE TAKE WAS €40,000

Four hooded men broke into a family home in Vendin-le-Vieil, in northern France, around 4 a.m. on Sunday, September 20. They taped up a couple and their two children, ages 8 and 12, and held them for about three hours, per the local prosecutor and Decrypt. The father, a 40-year-old IT worker in the crypto business, was forced to send about €40,000, roughly $46,000, in crypto. The 12-year-old was hit in the face. The four men are still loose.

France’s national anti-organized-crime prosecutor has counted more than 70 crypto-linked kidnappings and illegal detentions in the first eight months of 2026, per Decrypt. That is about one every three and a half days.

Self-custody means nobody can freeze your coins. It also means the only thing between a thief and the coins is the person who can sign. The defense is making “I can’t” true: keys split across people and places, time delays on big moves, and as little public about who holds what as possible. Your keys don’t have a domain to seize. You do have a front door. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $85,759.