Unchained printed a brand new academic information on “wrench assaults,” the time period for bodily coercion used to pressure a sufferer at hand over bitcoin keys.
The agency frames the difficulty as a safety consideration for anybody treating bitcoin as a bearer asset and holding it instantly.
How frequent are they?
Unchained factors to Jameson Lopp’s long-running dataset and a 2024 tutorial paper by Ordekian et al. as key sources.
Lopp argued in Might 2025 that the chance is commonly misweighted versus extra frequent failure modes.
He mentioned:
“It’s necessary to place this all in context. Wrench assaults are most likely the rarest sort of assault that occurs on this area. […] There are numerous, many, larger, extra frequent threats that you ought to be nervous about lengthy earlier than you begin worrying in regards to the wrench assault.”
Unchained notes Lopp’s checklist has “over 250 documented circumstances” of bodily assaults since 2014, whereas additionally warning incidents could also be underreported.
Three prevention levers
First, Unchained recommends limiting who is aware of you personal bitcoin, together with avoiding apparent signaling like branded clothes or public in-person transactions.
Second, it recommends obscuring balances and entry paths, together with avoiding discussing holdings and making keys tougher to achieve.
Third, it emphasizes baseline safety and privateness measures, from residence safety to stronger digital authentication.
“Getting severe” about custody
Unchained argues:
“One of the best instrument to soundly guard bitcoin towards theft is a multisig pockets.”
A multisig pockets creates geographically distributed keys so a single compromised location can’t drain funds.
For extra particulars and the complete checklist of suggestions, learn Unchained’s unique piece: https://www.unchained.com/weblog/wrench-attacks