Coinbase reportedly spent roughly $7.6 million on private safety for CEO Brian Armstrong in 2025, a greater than 20% improve from the yr earlier than.
That is in response to the corporate’s proxy filings cited in a report by Bloomberg, with the spending coming after bodily assaults on crypto holders rose 75% final yr. Per information from blockchain safety agency CertiK, there have been 72 confirmed incidents and $41 million in recognized losses.
Crypto Companies Tighten Safety After Wave of Violent Assaults
That $7.6 million determine acknowledged within the Bloomberg piece exceeds what main Wall Road banks usually disclose for CEO safety. For context, Gemini reportedly spent round $2.5 million on safety for the 2 co-founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, in 2025 and has since signed a deal to guard the twins and their households for $400,000 monthly.
Circle spent almost $800,000 on its CEO, Jeremy Allaire, in 2024, whereas Robinhood spent roughly $1.6 million on Vlad Tenev. The remainder of the business response might be noticed somewhere else as properly. For instance, in the course of the Bitcoin 2026 convention in Las Vegas simply final month, high-profile audio system might be seen strolling round with private bodyguards.
And to point out how severely the group is taking safety, a workshop led by Bitcoin safety knowledgeable Ben Perrin that taught attendees the best way to defend their digital belongings beneath bodily coercion, in addition to the best way to use decoy wallets, time-lock mechanisms, and duress options on {hardware} wallets, was one of the vital closely attended on the convention.
It was the identical just a few weeks earlier at Paris Blockchain Week, the place visitors have been escorted by a police motorcade to a VIP dinner whereas organizers doubled safety across the occasion.
The risk could be very actual, as seen when a crypto holder recognized on-line as Sillytuna reported in March that armed attackers stole round $24 million in tokens after bodily intimidating him and threatening him with kidnapping and sexual assault.
The Structural Drawback Beneath the Headlines
The explanation why crypto house owners are so susceptible boils right down to the know-how itself. As we all know, public blockchains are pseudonymous and never nameless, thus revealing possession data for anybody with correct analytical instruments to view. As such, leaked change information and chain analytics have collectively created, as Bloomberg put it, “a legible map of who holds what.”
For that purpose, demand for cover providers has responded accordingly. Government Threat Providers, a agency centered on the digital-asset business, went from receiving shopper inquiries roughly as soon as per quarter two years in the past to about as soon as per week now.
In the meantime, Amsterdam-based Infinite Dangers Worldwide, which offers bodyguards, armored automobiles, and social media monitoring to crypto holders, has seen extra inquiries, extra long-term purchasers, and extra proactive requests, in response to managing director Jethro Pijlman. In keeping with the report, France has turn into a hotspot for crypto crime after a string of assaults on crypto entrepreneurs and their households.
Issues have gotten so unhealthy that final yr, the nation’s Inside Minister promised to determine a precedence emergency quantity for the business, with elite police models providing safety briefings for crypto executives and their households.
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