Topic: Suggest Practical Ways Someone Could Have Prevented This - page 3. (Read 671 times)

We can't say this enough. the constant need to let people know you hold a huge amount of Bitcoin is unnecessary. Public figures that the whole world knows have large amounts of Bitcoin and can afford top security, they are mostly in the most secure places compared to common people. There is a slimmer chance of those kinds of people getting mugged on the street or in a bar or restaurant.
People who are not that privileged, but privileged enough to have a reasonable amount of bitcoin should not advertise it, be it on social media or offline. It's okay for people to know you're into Bitcoin, but they shouldn't know that you have a reasonable amount of it.

It's so sad they had to kill him. They could have just taken his Bitcoin and left him alone to go his own way. It's a crazy world out there and we have to protect ourselves with what we have any way we can both offline and online.

A total stranger will not randomly guess that you are hodling Bitcoin, it has to be people who knows that you hodl it. This was one of the lessons that I learned as a newbie in this forum, never to announce my Bitcoin in public, this is because your private keys is the only proof of ownership, if it changes hands that means that you have automatically transferred the ownership to whoever that is holding your seed phrase. This is one of the burdens of being your own bank, there is no centralized authority that you can report to, when you're robbed of your seed phrase that can stop the criminals from stealing your Bitcoin.

If a bank employee commits a crime, the bank is liable and makes you whole. They do so because they will get sued and/or they are required by regulations to do so--and also because they will ruin their own business if they don't because everybody will take their money out of that bank and into a safer one.

For what it's worth, the notion of somebody keeping their life savings physically on their own person is rather... absurd in the developed world. The tiny number of people who do it either have very little in the way of savings (hand-to-mouth subsistence), or are considered... sorta crazy .

Muggings dropped drastically in US cities starting in the 1980s. The reason? Credit cards: people stopped carrying lots of physical cash. Their savings was safely stored under their own name in a bank.

Most people don't want to create their own security apparatus, and instead want to pay somebody else who has one already. That's what a bank is.

I just read the news on cointelegraph.com and what I observed is that some bitcoiners have been killed over the years and their bitcoin stolen by the robbers. Just like what the advise on the post says it will be better for us to keep our bitcoin involvement secret and their is no need to start preaching about bitcoin anymore because it is now popular.

Also staying away from bitcoin seminars and meet ups will be better because you don't know who came their to find their next target. Avoid anything related with bitcoin discussion anywhere you are apart from trusted people. The bitcoin in your wallet is mute.

Keeping your Bitcoin holding secret is very important but privacy is becoming very difficult. Most exchanges require KYC, which can lead to loss of privacy. Some members of forums might also know each other physically which can also be a problem. Using privacy tools to cover up transactions might also be a good way to remain private.

Keeping huge funds in banks is even more riskier. Almost all the bank staff will know how much you are worth. There are incidents where bank staff acts as spies for criminals, and give them information about the client's accounts. Criminals also force targets to transfer funds from their bank accounts. But the good part of it is that such funds can be tracked easily.

No, it's not. Your money can be stolen, either by break-in, or at gunpoint. Our you could misplace it.

Almost all Americans keep their savings in a bank or other financial institution. These companies specialize in keeping things safe from criminals, and will give you your money even if they get robbed.

Maybe banks don't work correctly in the country you are from, but they work just fine in the USA. I would never keep any amount of significant money on my own person.

Just like telling him to kindly give his money to a more advanced thiefs Why banks? Having control of your own funds is the best. I don't have to go through so many stress to access my funds. It was his fault in the first place, that why his coins were stolen. I wonder why people would decide to not keep their mouth shut. The public is unsafe, but no one will ever know you have Bitcoins if you don't announce it.

  Though him being murdered was completely unnecessary, I think there is more to this story. If they wanted to steal his coin, they could have just taken it and left. What the point of killing him? It also shows clearly that the ones who stole from him are people he knows best. So they don't want him to recognize them so they killed him. The world is dangerous so as a Bitcoiner, we have to take our privacy seriously.

Use a bank instead. That's why people like banks. Physically guarding your own savings is for the birds.

Immediately I saw this post first thing that popped up in my head was 1miau post ; Why it’s important to avoid telling everyone about your crypto holdings

Some newbie bitcioners or careless bitcioners don't understand how important it is to keep holdings as secret as possible. Just like MK4 mentioned, they would not have come for him if they were not aware about the bitcoin he has .

I feel sorry for this guy, RIP! But this continues to be a lesson for those who believe they can be flaunting their wealth, especially the digital assets like cryptocurrency that is decentralised, the danger of robbing them or even killing them is high. Thanks to the CCTV camera that captured the perpetrators, it could have been untraceable in some environments, so we should be private with them even as Bitcoin preaches privacy and anonymity.

Practically as you asked, I have these few tips;

1. Never disclose your Bitcoin asset or its worth to anyone and make sure you only buy your Bitcoin from external sources that can never trace it to you.

2. If you make the mistake of being traced and have a huge number of Bitcoins in your wallet, I advise you to mix them and send them to a self-custody wallet afterwards.

3. Show restraints when Bitcoin discussion is mentioned in public, and even among friends, the enthusiasts and lousy mouths will always be the number one target.

4. Do not have Bitcoin wallets installed on the gadgets you take to public places if you have a huge value of it in them as anyone may be a victim of robbers and unforeseen circumstances at times. Checking your phone alone could put you in trouble as cryptocurrency is the aim of some evil-doers now.

Most times we underate the importance of keeping things to ourselves and the end product is what we've seen that has happened to this young man. From the statement from the police, it reads;
so obviously, he allowed others to get access to the information that he had some amount of Bitcoin in his possession for reasons best known to him.
 
Even without looking for this police report, if a criminal attacks me, the highest I would expect them to do to me in terms of stealing from me is to force me to open my bank account and transfer my funds to them. For any reason that they make enquiry regarding my crypto holding, it means it's actually a compromise from someone that knows I'm currently holding Bitcoin or alternatively I have knowingly or unknowingly given them an impression that I have some amount of holding in my wallet.

And by no one, it is not only at strangers that we meet on the street kor randomly that are referenced to here, people who we we call our friends and our family members still have to be feared because they can do to you what strangers will do to you if you become too careless and trust blindly as they are humans too. People can never steal what they know you do not have, the reason and need to be careful what you let people know you have.

Interestingly, however, I know you have Bitcoin and you know I have Bitcoin. Nobody in our respective neighborhoods may know that we have any, but these days there's only a thin line that divides your online and offline life. Though you're mk4 and I'm Darker45 here, for example, somebody else may or might have already obtained our real identities. All I'm saying is that the man could have led a low-key and quite life in real life, but somewhere online his identity and that he had Bitcoin were known.

Which leads me to conclude that it isn't enough that you appear to have no Bitcoin in real life. It might also be a must that we don't attach our real identities with any of our online accounts. Next to impossible, though, I'd say. It would also mean not using any service that asks for KYC.

In addition, it is said in the news that "people in a nearby house heard screams and saw the man being beaten and bundled into a car."^[1] Nobody came out? The criminals could have immediately fled with the sight of people checking out what happened.

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[1] https://kyivindependent.com/foreigner-kidnapped-forced-to-transfer-bitcoins-then-murdered-in-kyiv-police-say

And because of that, always remain humble and don't let other people know whether you have Bitcoin or not. Because an incident like this happened in my city, where a Bitcoin billionaire was on holiday and then the place where he was staying was visited by several people and he was held captive together with his girlfriend, his Bitcoin worth 200k USD was drained by the threat, fortunately his life was still safe. So yeah the best way to avoid cases like this is to stay alert and don't let other people know how much bitcoin you have.

If you show your appearance as non-rich, poor, non-Bitcoiner, you will protect yourself better. With more privacy, anonymity, you will have less risk of kidnap, and murder.

A bitcoiner’s guide to organized crime
Known physical Bitcoin attacks
All known physical attacks on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from 2014 to 2022
Over 100 Physical Attacks Against Bitcoin Holders And Infrastructure Recorded Since 2014

If you want to be safe, invest in secret and act like you don't know about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market and don't engage in this market. Don't show your rich through your appearances.

Criminals won't be trying to get your bitcoin off you if they didn't know you have bitcoin in the first place.

Be private with your bitcoin/crypto holdings because no one really has to know.

https://chainsec.io/wrench-attack

This guy was kidnapped in Kyiv, forced to transfer all his BTC and murdered. What could he have done to prevent this?

https://unn.ua/news/u-kyievi-vykraly-ta-vbyly-inozemtsia-zarady-bitkoiniv-na-miliony-hryven-politsiia