Criminals used violence or threats to seize digital assets in 52 verified cases worldwide during the first half of 2026, and France accounted for 33 of them.
Key Points:
- CertiK verified 52 wrench attacks in the first six months of 2026, a 33.3% rise on the same period a year earlier.
- Recorded financial exposure reached about $124.1 million, up from roughly $10.5 million in the first half of 2025.
- France logged 33 of the 52 incidents, and home invasions displaced robbery as the most common tactic.
CertiK Report Tracks Wrench Attack Surge
Blockchain security firm CertiK released its Intel3D wrench attack report on Jul. 23. The count reached 52 incidents, up from 39 a year earlier. Recorded financial exposure hit about $124.1 million, against roughly $10.5 million in the same period of 2025.
Average exposure per incident rose to $2.39 million from about $270,000, a shift that points toward larger and better researched targets. The timing was lopsided, with 35 cases in the first quarter and only 17 in the second.
CertiK cautioned that its totals are indicative rather than exhaustive, because many ransoms, settlements and recoveries never surface publicly.
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Laurent Nuñez Reports 77 French Incidents
Europe accounted for 39 of the 52 verified cases, and France alone recorded 33, or 63.5% of the global total.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez put the national figure higher, citing 77 crypto-linked kidnapping and extortion cases in the first half of 2026. CertiK applies a narrower standard and counts only publicly reported cases it can verify through courts, police or credible media.
The firm attributes France's concentration to a dense, visible crypto industry and to a run of major data breaches. One hit the Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés, whose portal incident exposed identity records for as many as 19 million people, handing criminals ready material for target lists.
Home Invasions Overtake Crypto Kidnappings
Home invasions jumped to 20 cases from a single publicly reported incident a year earlier, roughly 41% of the first-half total.
Kidnappings rose to 16 from 12, and torture held at four. In one March incident near Paris, attackers forced a couple inside their home to transfer about 900,000 euros in Bitcoin (BTC) before fleeing.
The escalation has been building for more than a year, and CertiK counted 72 verified attacks across all of 2025, up 75% on 2024, with $40.9 million in confirmed losses. France recorded 19 of those cases, in a year that opened with the kidnapping of Ledger co-founder David Balland and his wife.
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