About 70% of all wrench attacks, physical attacks against crypto holders and their families, carried out in an attempt to steal digital assets, occur in France, according to Bitcoin journalist Joe Nakamoto.

There have been 41 crypto-related kidnappings in France so far in 2026, Nakamoto said, or about one attack every two and a half days, he added.

He attributed the rise in wrench attacks to know-your-customer data collection, which is stored in centralized servers that were compromised in several high-profile data leaks, including the 2020 leak of hardware wallet provider Ledger’s customer data.

An overview of wrench attacks in France so far in 2026. Source: Joe Nakamoto

That data leak disclosed the identities, home addresses and emails…