Crypto prices are on a veritable roller coaster ride as president Donald Trump's initiatives and deregulation embolden crypto whales to funnel billions into digital currency — a space that advocates say is poised to become the legitimate business they've long predicted, but which keeps attracting scams and crime.
And not all crypto-criminals are hiding behind a computer screen, a lesson that famed OnlyFans creator Kaitlyn "Amouranth" Siragusa found out the hard way on Sunday, when she says home invaders dragged her out of bed at gunpoint.
They weren't there to boost cash or electronics, but apparently to nab the password to Siragusa's phone holding her crypto wallet: the only thing standing between them and a potential $20 million payout.
"They beat me before this video and pistol whipped me the pummeling felt like it would never end," she wrote after the ordeal. "They brought duct tape and masks and were armed with handguns."
The popular streamer claimed to have shot one of the assailants in a series of erratic posts on X-formerly-Twitter.
"I believe I shot one of them they wanted crypto is what they were yelling they pulled me out of bed," Siragusa wrote. "They kept shooting my bedroom door and then finally kicked it in."
The police in Houston later acknowledged the incident, calling for "any information about this aggravated robbery / home invasion." Given the gang-like nature of the attack — and the fact that the robbers apparently made Swiss cheese of Siragusa's bedroom door — it's a miracle the streamer was able to live-post the attack on X.
It's unclear whether the assailants got what they came for, but the brazen attack is just one of many to plague the ever-tumultuous world of digital currency as IRL crimes become increasingly commonplace.
Assuming one takes the proper precautions, blockchain currency can be very secure from outside actors. Instead of a few centralized banks holding huge sums for customers in juicy bank vaults, crypto custody is spread among individuals. Unfortunately, that's driving thieves to seek more personal avenues of approach, a practice crypto-nerds call "wrench attacks" — a fun way to say "no password is safe from physical violence."
In all of 2024, there were 24 reported wrench attacks, according to reporting by Fortune. In January 2025, there were eight alone. If this pace keeps up throughout the year, the figure could approach a hundred armed crypto heists in 2025.
One of those was the shocking kidnapping of French crypto mogul David Balland, along with his wife, by a gang of armed thieves. Balland, a cofounder of the billion-dollar crypto hardware company Ledger, was held as ransom in exchange for a $100 million Bitcoin ransom, a grisly point made clear when Ledger cofounder Éric Larchevêque received Balland's severed finger in the mail.
Though Balland and his wife were found alive after the French police and crypto industry bent over backward to find the multi-millionaire and save Larchevêque's crypto holdings, smaller-time crypto holders may not be so lucky.
Case in point, Siragusa, also a multimillionaire in digital holdings — though with decidedly less political and industry influence — was likely targeted after flashing her crypto wallet full of millions in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
As crypto enthusiasts of all kinds enjoy a heightened market thanks to the White House's exceedingly visible hand, savage crypto crimes like these may just be the tip of the iceberg.
More on crypto crime: Someone Hacked Paul Krugman's Twitter and Made an Entire Fake Website for the New York Times to Shill a "New York Times Coin" Scam Coin
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