Coinbase reportedly spent roughly $7.6 million on private safety for CEO Brian Armstrong in 2025, a greater than 20% enhance from the yr earlier than.
That is in accordance with the corporate’s proxy filings cited in a report by Bloomberg, with the spending coming after bodily assaults on crypto holders rose 75% final yr. Per information from blockchain safety agency CertiK, there have been 72 confirmed incidents and $41 million in identified losses.
Crypto Companies Tighten Safety After Wave of Violent Assaults
That $7.6 million determine acknowledged within the Bloomberg piece exceeds what main Wall Avenue banks usually disclose for CEO safety. For context, Gemini reportedly spent round $2.5 million on safety for the 2 co-founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, in 2025 and has since signed a deal to guard the twins and their households for $400,000 per 30 days.
Circle spent practically $800,000 on its CEO, Jeremy Allaire, in 2024, whereas Robinhood spent roughly $1.6 million on Vlad Tenev. The remainder of the trade response will be noticed elsewhere as properly. For instance, throughout the Bitcoin 2026 convention in Las Vegas simply final month, high-profile audio system could possibly be seen strolling round with private bodyguards.
And to indicate how significantly the group is taking safety, a workshop led by Bitcoin safety professional Ben Perrin that taught attendees methods to shield their digital belongings underneath bodily coercion, in addition to methods to use decoy wallets, time-lock mechanisms, and duress options on {hardware} wallets, was one of the vital closely attended on the convention.
It was the identical just a few weeks earlier at Paris Blockchain Week, the place friends had been escorted by a police motorcade to a VIP dinner whereas organizers doubled safety across the occasion.
The menace could be very actual, as seen when a crypto holder identified on-line as Sillytuna reported in March that armed attackers stole round $24 million in tokens after bodily intimidating him and threatening him with kidnapping and sexual assault.
The Structural Drawback Beneath the Headlines
The explanation why crypto house owners are so susceptible boils right down to the know-how itself. As we all know, public blockchains are pseudonymous and never nameless, thus revealing possession data for anybody with correct analytical instruments to view. As such, leaked alternate information and chain analytics have collectively created, as Bloomberg put it, “a legible map of who holds what.”
For that cause, demand for defense providers has responded accordingly. Government Danger Companies, a agency targeted on the digital-asset trade, went from receiving consumer inquiries roughly as soon as per quarter two years in the past to about as soon as per week now.
In the meantime, Amsterdam-based Infinite Dangers Worldwide, which gives bodyguards, armored autos, and social media monitoring to crypto holders, has seen extra inquiries, extra long-term shoppers, and extra proactive requests, in accordance with managing director Jethro Pijlman. In response to the report, France has develop into a hotspot for crypto crime after a string of assaults on crypto entrepreneurs and their households.
Issues have gotten so unhealthy that final yr, the nation’s Inside Minister promised to ascertain a precedence emergency quantity for the trade, with elite police items providing safety briefings for crypto executives and their households.
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