Comment by dachris
7 hours ago
Why is this such an issue with crypto?
Wealth status is often very well known for public figures and entrepreneurs. People are driving around in $200k cars.
Is it due to the liquidity of cryptocurrencies that $5 wrench attacks work better?
If you're kidnapping a generic very rich person, how are you expecting them to pay the ransom, a big burlap sack of cash? There's a lot that can go wrong there. A bank transfer? Few criminals would be comfortable with that approach. (John Grisham novels aside, it's virtually impossible to make this untraceable). Magic internet money is presumably far less messy.
Also, a decent proportion of crypto-millionaires came by their riches in... not entirely above-board ways (in particular, securities fraud; all those pump and dump scamcoins are paying off for _someone_), and may be reluctant to involve the authorities. And the crypto industry as a whole is unusually comfortable with extortion; hacked crypto companies paying a kind of bounty to hackers to get the rest of the funds back is a common thing.
It happens with cash sometimes but people are limited to the amount they can get out of an ATM where with crypto you can force someone to hand over all their wealth with a few keystrokes.