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Comment by thasso | Hacker News Reader

Why don't we hear about this happening to people who are equally wealthy in classical (non-crypto) assets? Are they more discreet and harder to make out or are there protections in place at, e.g., banks that limit the efficacy of these kinds of attacks? I guess most wealth people don't have enough of their wealth in liquid assets to be a good target but people with lot's of crypto assets can easily transfer it all.

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Those people keep their money in banks.

Sure you can pressure people to transfer money from banks to you. But that will be easier to trace and the transactions could just be reversed. If moving all your wealth the bank is likely to ask some questions, maybe want to see you in person.

With crypto the philosophy is “be your own bank”. It’s like keeping your money under the mattress. So you are a much more promising target.

Also bank transactions are reversible.

e.g. you have not had a wonderful windfall of someone mistypes an account number and send you a $1 million. You are in fact obligated to report the issue and not simply go "great!" and start spending the money, tonthe point that you can be held legally liable.

It's not 100% but as people are fond of saying: we do live in a society, it's hardly onerous.

Kinda backwards there, _billions_ of dollars a year are stolen from US residents that have the money in banks, the FTC says 12.5 billion last year. It's so easy that you don't even have to apply a wrench.

Yes you can do identity theft type things, but the in-flesh attacks are much harder.

Me kidnapping you probably isn't going to yield me much money from a bank. And robbing a bank is a death sentence.

You can also do non physical attacks to steal crypto. Sim-swapping being one.

Kidnapping for ransom used to be big business for US organized crime. Then the law changed to basically outlaw paying ransoms (all negotiations had to go through the FBI) and while a few people died, kidnapping for ransom in the US largely died as well after the 80s.

This is really interesting, thanks. Is it generally believed that this law change is the reason for the sharp drop in kidnapping in the US? (Or did it coincide with other changes that might explain it?)

A credible policy of not paying ransoms led to it becoming an unprofitable business.

> banks that limit the efficacy of these kinds of attacks?

In my country, transfers of very large sums often require upping the transaction limit by visiting the bank branch, filling out a form and then submitting it at which point it’ll be accepted in a few days.

While obviously inconvenient when trying to transfer funds for investments, etc. it’s easy to see why the system prevents fraud of this sort.

When you create your own keys, you essentially become the bank. Additionally, with exchanges or other custodial platforms, once you move funds, the transactions are irreversible and can be very difficult, or even impossible, to trace.

Why would you say they are difficult/impossible to trace? It's publicly visible where it goes and where it gets eventually spent. Ill gained bitcoin even gets flagged and its very hard to spend.

1) You can track the transactions publicly, but once the crypto hits the wallet of someone that can trade cash for it, you've lost track of the criminal.

2) Privacy focused currencies like Monero make it exceedingly difficult to attribute transactions to specific individuals.

Because the public doesn’t relate to these victims.

It seems like quite a stretch to think the public feels significantly greater affinity to wealthy people who hold stocks, real-estate, and other traditional assets compared to cryptocurrency speculators. It seems like a much more parsimonious explanation that the attacks are more prevalent in the less secure medium since attackers are more likely to succeed.

“Be your own bank” makes a cool bumper sticker but it’s like saying “be your own pilot” or “do your own surgery” in terms of complexity and risk. There’s a reason why these things traditionally involve teams of people with various safety precautions baked in to make attacks riskier.

…Are we doing a “persecuted crypto-holders” thing now?

In all seriousness I think most people relate to kidnapping and mutilation and not wanting it to happen to them.

I mean it’s not like the traditionally rich receive much love.

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