The cryptography protecting your $Bitcoin is nearly unbreakable. The front door of your house is not. France has just put a number on that uncomfortable truth: 90 cases of crypto-related kidnapping, abduction, extortion, threats and violent theft between January 1 and mid-August 2026, according to figures the French Interior Ministry provided to Cointelegraph. That is a new case roughly every two and a half days.

Police made 223 arrests and jailed 126 people over the period. And yet the attacks keep spreading, from Paris to Marseille, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Grenoble and Nantes.

Why Is France the World Capital of Crypto Wrench Attacks?

A “wrench attack” is crypto slang for the oldest hack in the book: skip the encryption and threaten the…