A Planned Attack 600 Miles From Home
On the morning of January 31st, two high school students from San Luis Obispo County drove 600 miles to a quiet Scottsdale neighborhood called Sweetwater Ranch. According to investigators, they weren’t there to deliver packages—even though they wore delivery uniforms when they stepped out of their blue Subaru at sunrise. Instead, police say the pair forced their way into a family home, duct-taped two people inside, and demanded access to roughly $66 million worth of cryptocurrency.
When the victims insisted they didn’t have any digital assets, things turned violent. A third person in the house managed to call 911, and police arrived quickly enough to corner the suspects at a nearby dead end just minutes later. Inside their car, officers discovered zip ties, more duct tape, stolen license plates, and a 3D-printed plastic gun that’s still being tested to see if it actually works.
Both teens are now facing eight felony charges. Prosecutors plan to try them as adults. They’ve been released on $50,000 bond and are wearing ankle monitors while the case moves forward. Court documents reveal something even more unsettling: the teens were allegedly in contact with anonymous handlers on Signal—people going by the names “Red” and “8”—who supposedly paid them $1,000 for disguises and gave them the exact address to target. Detectives are now using blockchain analysis tools to trace those payments, making this one of the most high-profile “wrench attack” cases in the United States so far in 2026.
Why Physical Attacks on Crypto Holders Are on the Rise
This kind of crime—forcing someone to hand over their cryptocurrency keys through violence or intimidation—isn’t new, but it’s becoming a lot more common. Security researcher Jameson Lopp has been tracking these incidents globally, and his data shows that attacks jumped 169 percent from 2024 to 2025, with around seventy cases recorded last year. The real number is probably higher, since many victims don’t report what happened out of fear or embarrassment.
Several trends are feeding this surge. Late last year, a major U.S. crypto exchange suffered a data breach that exposed the identities of thousands of people holding large amounts of digital currency. That kind of leak gives criminals a shopping list of potential targets. At the same time, it’s never been easier to look the part—anyone can buy a courier uniform online, rent a car through a rideshare app, and show up at someone’s door without raising suspicion.
There’s also a disturbing pattern of younger people getting pulled into these schemes. Encrypted messaging apps like Telegram and Signal are full of tutorials that promise teenagers “life-changing money” for taking on jobs like this, banking on the idea that juvenile offenders might face lighter sentences. And the availability of 3D-printed guns—often called “ghost guns” because they don’t have serial numbers—makes it easier for attackers to arm themselves without leaving a paper trail.
The industry is starting to respond. Hardware wallet makers are adding “duress PIN” features that show fake, smaller account balances if someone’s being threatened. Insurance companies have seen a 32 percent increase in policies that cover losses from physical coercion. In the Scottsdale case, police worked with blockchain analytics companies to freeze funds connected to the suspects’ encrypted contacts within 48 hours, showing that law enforcement is getting better at this—but so are the criminals.
The Bigger Question: Can You Really Protect Millions on Your Own?
This case has reignited an uncomfortable debate in the crypto world. The whole point of cryptocurrency, for many people, is that you control your own money—no banks, no middlemen. But what happens when controlling your own money also means you’re a walking target? After all, the strongest encryption in the world doesn’t matter if someone shows up at your house with duct tape and a gun.
Venture capital is already flowing into custodial services that split up control of crypto assets across multiple locations or require several people to sign off on transactions. Some U.S. senators are even citing the Scottsdale attack as they draft new legislation that would encourage—or maybe require—professional storage solutions for anyone holding more than $5 million in digital assets.
Finding a Middle Ground
But for the crypto faithful, giving up self-custody feels like betraying the entire philosophy of decentralization. Security experts think the answer might lie somewhere in between: more people using time-locked vaults that prevent instant transfers, biometric authentication that can’t be forced, and social recovery systems where trusted contacts have to approve big moves. These tools make it physically impossible for an attacker to walk away with everything in a single visit.
Whether those solutions spread fast enough to stop copycats remains to be seen. If they don’t, 2026 might be remembered as the year when holding serious money in crypto stopped being just a digital security problem—and became a very physical one too.
