France recorded 90 Bitcoin (BTC) "wrench attack" cases over a seven-month period, according to a COINOTAG report published on October 17, 2026, underscoring the rise of physical attacks targeting cryptocurrency holders.

Update 18:46 UTC: The global catalogue of such incidents has grown sharply. Jameson Lopp's public repository of wrench-attack cases now lists roughly 702 incidents — nearly double the 365 he had catalogued earlier — after researcher Pizza Bitcoiner used AI-assisted search of local-language sources to surface previously undocumented cases. The near-doubling of the tally stems largely from that research approach, which drew cases into the catalogue that had not previously appeared in it, a sign of how much incident data has historically sat outside English-language reporting. Because the repository is public and continually expanded, its running total offers readers a figure to watch as documentation of these attacks broadens.

A "wrench attack" describes physical coercion — such as assault, kidnapping, or threats — used to force a victim to surrender digital assets or hand over access to their wallets. The term originates from XKCD webcomic No. 538, which pointed out that a $5 wrench can defeat even strong encryption. Unlike cyberattacks, these incidents target holders directly rather than exploiting software vulnerabilities, meaning that for holders, protection depends on physical circumstances as much as on cryptographic strength — the gap the growing catalogue is now making measurable.

This content was first published on COINOTAG: https://en.coinotag.com/france-bitcoin-btc-wrench-attacks-90-cases-seven-months