Topic: Suggest Practical Ways Someone Could Have Prevented This (Read 674 times)

Living a private life is what can save us from these kinds of things. Let everything about our life be a secret, especially anything about your financial aspects. There are a lot of bad people around us. Once they hear good news about someone, they will always find a way to bring that person down. Sometimes, it is our own lifestyle and pattern of living that draw enemies to us. If we want to avoid enemies, we need to live lifestyles that people will not know much about. The best security we can give ourselves is to live our lives privately. Let’s try keeping things to ourselves.

Rule number one is not to talk with anyone that you own any Bitcoin, especially not if you are a foreigner in a different country.
When I looked at the details he didn't even had that much bitcoin to send them, it was probably less that 3 BTC or $170,000, but desperate people can kill another human being even for less money 

It is hard to prevent it if you already exposed yourself to your attackers, giving them enough time to plan this attack and with all certainty that you have BTC's in your wallet, if you don't send it to them, then they would most likely torture you, until you do so.

However, if you run into robbers who wanted to steal something else from you, and did not attack you specifically for BTC, then a passphrase can save you, through plausible deniability. Your base wallet should be funded with a good amount in BTC and since the attackers never had a prior knowledge that you had BTC, they may believe that what you have in your base wallet is all of your coins, and they may take it and go.

Absolutely. Live your life privately and low key, so that the bad guys around will never suspect that you have bitcoin stored in your wallet. They won't dig in your life if they know nothing about you. Also, don't be too connected with social media, the people are not there to appreciate your posts, but to silently spying on you about what's going on in your life.

One thing most people do that’s wrong is that they can’t just keep quiet about their financial aspects. If you are holding bitcoin, then it should be known by only you alone, not going around telling people you are holding bitcoin or the amount of bitcoin you are holding. Not everyone you tell about your bitcoin accumulation will be happy about it, some people will be a criminal, and will look for ways to steal from you, so always make sure your bitcoin accumulation is private.
 
If anyone comes to you to teach them about bitcoin, make sure you have a new wallet that doesn’t have any money inside. That’s what you will be using to teach them, don’t use your main wallet, so that you won’t disclose your assets.

Being wealthy is different from keeping your bitcoin investment private without discussing the value or the number to a third party. Someone can be wealthy and every one will notice due to the level of physical investment that is owned by the person but when it comes to cryptocurrency investments, people should understand that bitcoin is privacy so anyone who is interested in investing in bitcoin or has already invested in bitcoin should learn to be private and secretive with his or her investment and no one should joke with the value of what  he has in his or her bitcoin wallet to avoid the risk of becoming a victim.

The victim must have in one way or the other done what that attracted his killers which is very clear that it was the fact that he owns some Bitcoin which he knowingly or unknowingly has reviewed how much of Bitcoin that was in his possession, and these people decided to robb him off his Bitcoin and the killers will obviously be some kind of very close friends envying him and decided to eliminate his life because they may have thought he had recognized them on the act.

One should stay coded about how much wealth they have for their safety as not everyone who is smiling at you is your friend.
Not sharing such information on social media or elsewhere would have gone a long way in preventing this incident.

We also have to realize that there is a war going on in Ukraine, meaning that law enforcement may not be as good as it used to be as expected, they can't keep the law going as perfectly as they used to during a war, it's that simple.

Meaning that they have to let some of the criminals get away with it, doesn't mean that these guys did, I don't know what happened to these guys, but in general criminals are a lot more confident when there is a war. Hell, USA made a deal with the mob to protect their ports in New York during the second world war as the biggest example, literal government working with mafia itself. So this could be a reason, people who feel more confident during a bad period to do whatever they want because they think they may get away with it.

Everything has two sides, pros and cons. You are so selfish that because of Bitcoin, even your parents and siblings want to hide it, and if unfortunately you have an unexpected accident and they don't have the money to save you. You won't survive to enjoy those bitcoins, and no one can inherit what you leave behind.

I once encountered a similar situation, his mother kept a lot of money and lent it to many people but hid it all from him. But suddenly she suddenly passed away, and he had no way to find back the fortune that his mother had worked hard to accumulate all her life. According to what he said, his mother had prepared a considerable amount for him and would give it to him when the time was right. But everything happened so suddenly and now he doesn't know where the assets his mother left behind are and who borrowed money from his mother.

Everything has risks, nothing is perfect, what matters is each person's choice. I would rather let my family know about my investments and assets and let them inherit everything if something unexpected happens to me, than bury it all with me because dead people don't need money.

You are actually right @Mk4. I read across the link provided by the op and I discovered that what you said was true that criminals won't be trying to get your bitcoin if they don't know you have bitcoin . According to some paragraph I read though the link I saw this

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

So in summary, if people don't know about our bitcoin HODLings they can't just attach is like that, we should be careful who we tell about our holdings because it could possibly be that a close friend his whom he may have told about his private bitcoin life would have used it against him.

Don't have what you need to access your cold storage on you or in a single location.

It is better to keep yourself anonymous when you have a good bitcoin portfolio. Dont tell anyone that you have invested in Bitcoin, not even your friends or family members. Sometimes out of joke or influence of alcohol and other toxic substance we spit out secret weve kept for decades and its disappointing. The heart of men is desperately wicked so i dont trust anyone not even my brother when it comes to how i make money.

What do you expect him to do there? When he was held at a spot and was forced to open his phone. The criminals might have come to steal from him not because of his Bitcoins but when they get to see his crypto apps they forced him to open it. Thats when they saw that he has a lot of Bitcoin and they forced him to send it to them. However, this is a scenario i picture with on mind, what i dont really understand is why they choose to kill him after taking from him. Does it mean that these persons know him very well.

But just because you spread bitcoin in public places or give investment advice to others doesn't mean you have to provide accurate information about your portfolio . I also don't hesitate when someone asks me about bitcoin or shares knowledge about bitcoin with everyone because I think that's also a way to help bitcoin become more popular , but no one can know how many bitcoins I own so far.
Spreading Bitcoin isn't a bad thing if you live in a country where bitcoin is legal and have good national security, as long as you don't reveal how much bitcoin you have .
In this story, I believe this guy bragged about his bitcoins or bragged about his bitcoin investment achievements to everyone . So he accidentally became the target of robbers and suffered such a tragic outcome .

There is no practical way that would have been possible apart from keeping the amount of Bitcoin you own to your self and self again, because I'm very sure that before this kidnapping must have commerce, he might have told people he have certain amount of Bitcoin in his wallet, which was what made him a target to be robbed, considering the amount he might have said openly in the public. So on this note, It would have and will be better if we can emulate Satoshi for staying anonymous with the amount of Bitcoin we own to strangers and also family and friends, because you never can tell who might be praying for your downfall.

 Sometimes we get carried away and want to disclose what we do, how much we earn and how things are for us to people we see as close friends but the sad truth is that's it's not everyone that smiles with you that may be happy for you especially if they may not be as comfortable as you. Sometimes, they may be but can be greedy and want to add to their wealth because they say what is better than money is more money.
 In my country where there is so much hardship, it's normal for people to stick their eyes in your business especially if you don't appear to be fazed by the economy or the fact that the local fiat is steadily going down against the dollar and this may bring about a certain curiosity and because you feel they may not know the extent to how Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general works, you'd just tell them, forgetting that you stand the risk of being robbed.

It’s the mistake some people make, undermining the importance of privacy or seeing privacy and security to apply to just how they keep or store their private keys. I get it that some investors haven’t got much choice in this as, some go about evangelizing for Bitcoin in seminars and stuff and what better way would it be to encourage the audience than to tell a little tale in how you’ve been able to successfully hold a worthy some using some strategy. Not saying that’s his predicament but, when you go about putting yourself out as a hodler, you should understand the risk that could accompany your actions.
Bitcoin need no evangelism and your better off keeping your investment private and secure.

Like you said, some persons are always too boastful of their asset and that's why they attract the attention bad actors to themselves. I have some best friends that are into cryptocurency and I know more care about how much they have in their portfolio and they in turn doesn't know about my total Bitcoin holding, and I think that's how it's supposed to be, Bitcoin is a secret asset that the investor should only be aware.

I do agree that the best case would be just not letting anyone know, if you tell everyone that you have bitcoin, then they are going to do this. So, if you keep the information to yourself then that would be the best method to keep it safe.

I mean after all, if they kidnap you, then you saying "I have no money" is probably too late, or even if you hide it so well that you can't access it, that is still not acceptable because then they will just hurt you.

So, the best method is always hide the fact that you have any money, don't tell anyone at all, never an exact amount neither. I mean the "best" method is not to have any money at all lol, because that is what I do, I have no money to be stolen from and that is why nobody has any reason to steal from me lol.

But jokes aside, if you are in danger like that, it could be way too late for you and there is really not that much you can do to protect yourself, a person who is willing to kidnap another person and steal all their money would not really be thinking twice about anything else, these people are crazy and they are not in a normal state of mind. So just avoid that kind of discussions with anyone, always make sure to stay humble in your talks.

We have to be extra careful because there are a lot of advanced tools out there that could seek out your real identity from our online persona. Like ip addresses for example. It is very important to combat against what could be a violation of privacy. Make sure to also strengthen your accounts and only use alias and not something that could be tied back to your real name.
You can't blame them. A lot of them might just be scared of what is happening and had no power to help. We don't know if they were prepared or not. It is unfortunate but it is what has happened already.

In short, don't divulge to anyone about your crypto dealings. Don't boast or post anything to your social media accounts because scammers are always looking for someone to be their victim. They are just silently watching and reading the movements of people and they will attack as soon as they found their victim.
In addition, make sure your computer is free from possible virus, if you are using your computer to store your crypto-related files. Check your firewall. As scammers are getting advanced and so their hacking tools.

Just as the first comment already said, if an individual doesn't expose their crypto portfolio to anyone, they cannot be kidnapped and killed after the kidnapper must have stolen the individual's asset. 

Never trust anyone with your investment information, just as you cannot trust them with your private key. Some people might be your friends, but inside their hearts, they are not fully happy with your success, and if you are giving such friends information about your financial status and investment, they can gang up against you with some other bad friend.

Bitcoin makes it possible for anyone, anywhere, to invest any amount of money in Bitcoin and hold it in their wallet without the identity of the investor being known to anyone. So, if you keep your Bitcoin investment a secret, kidnapers will not know. 

Cryptos are fairly popular in Ukraine, so it's not surprising that the criminals wanted to get someone's crypto holdings. I am sorry that this resulted in a violent crime and the death of the victim. What is good is that the police acted fast, arrested the alleged perpetrators, and they are facing Ukraine's most serious punishment: life imprisonment. So swift work of law enforcement is a positive side here.
I am not sure what could have been done to prevent it. The article mentions that the attack was planned in advance and that the offenders learned that the victim had a certain amount of BTC. It is not clear how they learned that, but this was a potential point that could have been different (if the foreigner's crypto funds were not discovered). But let's not resort to victim-blaming here. It was an unfortunate turn of events, a murder. Sometimes there's nothing that can be done to prevent it.

That's right, the bank can't help the guy in this case either because there are many ways for criminals to get money from bank accounts.

He made the mistake of showing off his assets to others and accidentally became the target of criminals. In this case, if it wasn't bitcoin, he still wouldn't be able to avoid being robbed if he accidentally let criminals know about his assets.

To me, bitcoin robbery stories are not many compared to money and gold robbery stories that happen every day... and the reason is all because they like to brag. Therefore, not only with bitcoin but with all our assets, we should keep it a secret from everyone and especially avoid bragging on social networks if we don't want a tragic ending like that guy.

While I tried to read on the link but I couldn't because it's written in Russian language, I'll only say that the option to prevent this is to just stay away and prevent whatever that would attract the public of your assets and don't trust even your loved ones because betrayal can come from anywhere.
Don't also try to suffocate the venerable with your money because it attracts the public that you've a lot of money.

I'm surprised you asked this question if I must be plain with you. As the coherence of the post is, the external sources are those outside your reach, unlike your immediate circles, like friends, relatives and others. They are the ones you can do Bitcoin transactions with and will not even know you ever existed after completing it.

This is common with P2P and other exchange platforms.

Emphasis in the quotes is mine.
It's not a matter of 'being smart'. It is a matter of what should be plain common sense! You don't go around on social media bragging about all of the nice things you have and sometimes in the same breath tell that your are going on vacation tomorrow for a week. You don't have apps running on yer phone letting everyone know where you are (or for that matter have GPS active at all). etc etc.

Regarding: Again, being knowledgeable in a given profession is irrelevant: When delving into something new - LEARN ABOUT IT - not just 'what it is' and 'how much you can make' but also potential pitfalls, how to avoid them, and what to look out for before investing in it.

It is indeed an interesting discussion especially for the young people who have been introduced to a culture where it is the norm to have all of your business online for the world to see. They do not seem to care about the harm it does to their privacy and autonomy. Social media has programmed people to be careless with their personal information all for likes and comments.

Anybody can be caught up in a scam--anybody. I've known some very, very smart people caught up in scams (e.g. pickpockets and the like). Just because you are smart doesn't mean you spend every waking hour looking for ways people can scam you--as scammers do.

The reason safety guards exist is because we have this cool "civilization" thing that allows us to have specialized professions, freeing most people to pursue their field rather than needing to know ever single one of them.

Kinda puts an interesting little discussion on the debate between personal autonomy and personal competency in today's population. The reason safety guards and authority states exist is because of the incompetency of the average person. We all have seen cases of the naive individual who falls for some email scam, or even a street hustle. Everyone is just too ignorant and/or not cautious enough.

Everybody here knows Bitcoin is pseudonymous and all transactions are visible on the blockchain. Bitcoin is not a privacy coin. That does not mean you cannot keep your bitcoin hodlings private. Your finances is your personal business and for your knowledge alone. I believe the only reason why the robbers were interested in the bitcoins was because they had information (either through his social media or an acquaintance) that the man had bitcoins in his possession.

In my opinion, people who cannot be silent about how much they have cannot “be their own bank”.

Interesting link between two of our threads here.

Everybody here seems to be clear that keeping your Bitcoin holdings private is essential to keeping safe.

And yet in another thread we're talking about how Bitcoin cannot really be used privately.

The only business where maintaining privacy is essential is investing in Bitcoin. If someone can't keep that privacy, then I believe they are responsible for the consequences. Hold your Bitcoin and there's no need to tell anyone about it.

This is true.
The bad actors will never know that you've got Bitcoin if they don't really know that you've got it in the first place. They won't end up kidnapping someone and force that guy to transfer his Bitcoin to them without them knowing that you have it. That's why staying low profile is important if you want to make yourself safe from all of those bad people. You don't need to flaunt your crypto assets or even your fiat or wealth to the public, especially on social media. You have no idea how many bad eyes are looking at you.

Never flash your wealth unless you can afford bodyguards and live a modest life. I think every single person needs to remember and practice this.

Bitcoin is a pseudo anonymous asset. So there is no way to know how much Bitcoins you are holding unless you are vocal about it. It's sad to see such kind of incidents. But it's more important to understand the source of information where criminals were able to identify a person with Bitcoins and planned to steal it.

Well, in this case he should have used an account at a brokerage like Binance or something.

Most people don't benefit from self-custodial wallets with their life savings in them. It makes perfect sense for "small" amounts of money, but for large amounts, a bank connected to your identity is best.

I wrote about this apparent contradiction in an article called, The Anon Paradox.

How does he use his bank? This kidnappers or thieves weren’t working just on speculation of him having bitcoin, they were definitely sure he had bitcoin, so should he deny it at the detriment of his life, I don’t think that’s one wise decision. He made a mistake and that’s announcing his bitcoin holdings which might have got him into this mess from the onset there is nothing that a bank can do here.

You could tell me that the bank account he transfers money to might have a details of someone but the criminals wouldn’t be that naive to move such way, they might ask him to do a physical withdrawal because if he sends to their banks they can be traced, same if the bitcoin too is sent to a platform or exchange with KYC

The bank is liable okay, but that's if you're alive to sue.

What learned from all these is that hodling is banking. A hodler is a bank and banks can be robbed. Unfortunately, most hodlers are not well-protected like banks.

It's important to remain anonymous and humble because it's unlikely that criminals will target you when they don't know your assets. It's just that not a few cases today occur when we try to show off and show off our portfolios where consciously or not it will invite a lot of people with various intentions including harm.

This is clearly quite depressing but there is nothing that can be done because after all the cause and effect clearly exists so that this can be a good consideration for us to be more humble so that we do not become a target just because we are too much to show off the assets we have consciously or not.
This does not mean that I justify what the criminals do because indeed it is one of the heinous acts and they deserve the punishment, but on the other hand we must also be able to limit ourselves so as not to get too carried away when the hype so as not to cause malicious intent from others because indeed it is an important thing so that our anonymity must be well maintained.

Just remain silent on everything you have and don't flex your bitcoin.

If you stay low key on everything for sure there will be no criminal would able to think to steal something from you. Criminals will only attack if they know that there's something to get from their targets. So to avoid being one of their target or hot in their eyes always hide your activities and live a simple life especially if you live on a city where to many criminals are residing.

But if you can't really avoid to show something or if people obviously know that you are earning big profits from bitcoin then much better hire a security personnel, since for that you can assure that you are well protected by help of those people.

I guess it's because of the ethnic, the victim is a Moroccan, high likely an Arabian.

Middle east people faced discrimination in Ukraine., if they robbed white people, I don't think they will kill the victims.

What's external sources?
 
1. The robbery will force the victim to send the money to their account.
2. The robbery will force the victim to withdraw the money on ATM till maximum limit.

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.

---

[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.

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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