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Violent “wrench attacks” against crypto holders, physical robberies and kidnappings meant to force victims to hand over coins, appear to be rising in absolute terms and trending more severe, according to a new visualization built from a long-running incident database maintained by security researcher Jameson Lopp.

Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi said he analyzed Lopp’s dataset and built an interactive dashboard to stress-test a question many traders and builders have been asking quietly for years: is simply holding crypto becoming physically more dangerous? “You’re not imagining it: the number of attacks has been increasing over time,” Qureshi wrote on X. “Not only that, the attacks are getting more violent.”

The dashboard breaks reported incidents into five severity bands — Minor, Moderate, Serious, Severe, and Fatal and the distribution skews heavily toward the sharp end of the spectrum. Of 269 categorized incidents shown, 137 (51%) were labeled “Serious,” 57 (21%) “Severe,” and 13 (5%) “Fatal,” with the remainder split between 39 (14%) “Moderate” and 23 (9%) “Minor.”

The year-by-year bars show the later years carrying a larger share of “Severe” and “Fatal” outcomes than the early history of the dataset, with 2025 appearing as the highest-incident year on the chart.

Qureshi’s analysis also puts a number on the most intuitive driver: price. Charting incidents against total crypto market capitalization, he reported a simple regression with an R² of 0.45 — implying roughly 45% of the variation in reported violence is explained by market cap alone. In plain terms, higher prices coincide with more attacks.

But the more consequential question for everyday holders is not raw counts; it’s risk per person. Because comprehensive “number of crypto users” data is hard to pin down, Qureshi used Coinbase monthly active users as a proxy, and separately normalized incidents by market cap to approximate attacks per dollar of wealth.

The resulting “normalized attack rates” chart tells a less linear story: per-user attack rates spiked in earlier market eras (notably around 2015 and again in 2018), then fell sharply after 2019, before ticking higher in the most recent observations. “So is that it?” Qureshi asked. “Proof crypto is becoming more physically dangerous?”

On his telling, not quite. Coinbase MAUs, he noted, expanded dramatically over the decade, while normalized attack rates did not rise proportionally, suggesting a meaningful “population effect” behind the higher headline totals. Still, the per-user line has moved up from its post-2019 lows, roughly back toward the levels seen during the 2021 cycle, even as the “attacks per $ of market cap” line remains comparatively flat in recent years.

Geography adds another uncomfortable layer. A regional table in the dashboard shows Western Europe (73 attacks) and North America (64) as the two largest buckets by incident count, with Asia-Pacific also substantial (53). But the most lethal outcomes cluster elsewhere: Latin America shows a 21% fatality rate and Africa 17%, versus 0% in North America. Qureshi underscored that point directly: “Notably, there have been 0 fatalities in North America ever,” he wrote, adding that the “lion’s share” of fatalities are in Latin America and Africa.

Lopp, who has maintained the underlying “Bitcoin Wrench Attack” archive for years, has warned the workload and frequency are becoming harder to treat as isolated incidents. “When an event goes from being rare to happening every few days, it’s no longer newsworthy — it’s just a fact of life,” he wrote in a Dec. 21 post cited in the thread, while inviting others to help maintain the database.

At press time, the total crypto market cap stood at $3.12 trillion.

Big Four accounting firm PwC has reversed its cautious stance on crypto after regulatory developments related to the space in the United States.

According to a report from the Financial Times, PwC has changed its strategy around digital assets following the new laws passed by Donald Trump’s administration. PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC in short, is a multinational professional services network headquartered in London. It provides services such as audits, tax planning, and business consulting to companies worldwide.

PwC is the second-largest firm of its kind and part of the Big Four accounting firms. Previously, the British company steered clear of crypto-related work in the US like other Big Four firms, but it seems that stance has now changed. The shift has come as the US has made advancements in its crypto regulatory framework. Among the new laws is the Genius Act, which regulates stablecoins, digital assets pegged to a fiat currency like the US Dollar (USD).

“The Genius Act and the regulatory rulemaking around stablecoin, I expect, will create more conviction around leaning into that product and that asset class,” said Paul Griggs, senior partner at PwC US, in an interview with FT.

Griggs added that PwC has been pitching companies on how they can use digital asset technology, with stablecoins as a means of improving payment systems’ efficiency, cited as one example.

PwC and other Big Four firms budging on crypto showcases the legislative momentum that the industry has had recently, with traditional finance increasingly unable to ignore the sector. Stablecoins, in particular, have been witnessing growing adoption. Beyond the American Genius Act, this class of digital assets also attracted regulatory attention in other parts of the world.

Hong Kong introduced a stablecoin issuer licensing framework last year, while Japan observed the launch of its first yen-based token. In Europe, major banks have come together to work on a euro-pegged coin, aiming to challenge the sector’s USD dominance. The positive regulation in 2025 meant that the space witnessed some sharp growth, with the market cap exploring new records, as data from DefiLlama shows.

The sector hasn’t been unaffected by the wider slowdown in crypto since October, however. From the above chart, it’s visible that the stablecoin market cap has seen consolidation in the last few months.

Nonetheless, while other parts of the market have shrunken, these fiat-tied tokens still have their combined market cap sitting at $307 billion today, which is very close to the all-time high (ATH).

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $92,900, up nearly 6% over the last week.

Solana (SOL) has entered 2026 with renewed attention from traders as its price stabilizes above the $130 technical area. After weeks of sideways movement, SOL has pushed higher, reclaiming levels that had previously capped upside attempts.

Related Reading: 600,000 Bitcoin Allegedly Held In Venezuelan Shadow Reserve: Report

The move comes amid broader strength across major cryptos and follows a period where Solana’s on-chain activity and network upgrades have reshaped how the market views the asset. With price holding above a critical support zone, market participants are now watching whether momentum can sustain a deeper recovery.

Solana (SOL) is currently trading above the $135 mark, extending gains of just over 1% in the past 24 hours. The price has successfully defended the $130–$135 zone, an area that previously acted as resistance during consolidation.

A break above $132 and the 100-hour simple moving average signaled a short-term trend shift, allowing buyers to push the price as high as $138 before a modest pullback.

Technical indicators point to improving momentum. The Relative Strength Index remains above 50, suggesting buying pressure outweighs selling interest, while the hourly MACD continues to strengthen in bullish territory.

A rising trend line around $135 now serves as near-term support, with additional downside protection near $130. Failure to hold this level could expose SOL to a deeper retracement toward $128 or $120, but for now, the structure favors stability.

On the upside, resistance remains clustered between $138 and $145. A sustained close above $145 would likely open the door to a move toward the $150–$155 range, a zone last tested during previous rally attempts.

Beyond price action, Solana’s on-chain metrics continue to draw attention. In 2025, the network processed roughly $1.6 trillion in on-chain spot trading volume, accounting for about 12% of total spot activity across crypto markets.

This represents a sharp increase from just a few years ago, when Solana played a minor role in trading flows.

The shift highlights a broader trend toward high-throughput blockchains as traders and applications prioritize speed and lower transaction costs. Growing stablecoin usage and decentralized exchange activity on Solana have helped anchor liquidity on-chain, reducing reliance on centralized platforms.

Solana’s technical progress also underpins the recent price resilience. The rollout of the Firedancer validator client aims to improve transaction processing and network stability, addressing concerns linked to past congestion and outages.

Alongside increased block space and compute capacity, these upgrades are designed to support higher activity without significant fee pressure.

As Solana expands across payments, NFTs, gaming, and prediction markets, its usage base has become more diversified.

Related Reading: Crypto Payments Hit A Turning Point With Visa Card Use Up Over 500%

While short-term volatility remains part of the landscape, the combination of defended support, improving technical signals, and strengthening fundamentals suggests momentum has shifted modestly in Solana’s favor.

Cover image from ChatGPT, SOLUSD chart from Tradingview

The Bitcoin price has already crashed by more than 32.5% from last year’s all-time high above $126,000, toward the $85,000 region. Although the cryptocurrency has recovered slightly and is now trading above $90,000, a crypto analyst has forecast another major price crash in 2026. According to the forecast, Bitcoin could decline by 50%, following trends observed in previous cycles, potentially hitting a bottom near $40,000. 

Bitcoin could face another price correction as technical indicators continue to signal a strong bear market. Market expert CryptoBullet warns that Bitcoin’s bear market behavior is not over, with a deeper pullback aligning with long-term on-chain trends. 

CryptoBullet bases his outlook on Bitcoin’s Realized Price, a metric that reflects the average price at which all circulating coins last moved. He explained that this level acts as a key reference during bear markets and has historically marked zones where price eventually breaks down before forming a bottom. 

Looking at past cycles, he noted that Bitcoin has consistently fallen below its Realized Price during bear markets. The drawdowns reached 66% in 2011, 48% in 2015, 35% in 2018, and 33% in 2022, indicating a consistent tendency for prices to fall below this level. Due to this repeated decline, the analyst believes the next bear-market crash will follow the same pattern, triggering a 50% drop to $40,000 for Bitcoin this year.

 Another major factor supporting CryptoBullet’s analysis is Bitcoin’s declining volatility over time. He noted that the gap between market price and Realized Price has steadily narrowed, shrinking from a 66% deviation in 2011 to roughly 33% in 2022. 

Because of this trend, the analyst does not expect the bear market this year to be as severe as the downside observed in past cycles. Instead, he estimates Bitcoin could fall by 24% to 31% below Realized Price, placing its likely bottom in the $40,000 to $43,000 range.  

With the Realized Price currently near $56,000, CryptoBullet has also cautioned that Bitcoin could decline even further to below $40,000 this year. The analyst noted that if the market repeats the 2022 bear market, a 33% drop below Realized Price would place Bitcoin near $37,400. 

He added that by the third quarter or fourth quarter of 2026, Realized Price could fall deeper to $53,000 or $54,000, which could result in a similar 33% crash, pushing Bitcoin closer to $35,000. The analyst has stated that $35,000 represents the most extreme downside he can reasonably see this year based on historical behavior. The accompanying chart also reflects this view by highlighting previous bear-market crashes that occurred after the price slipped well below the Realized Price line.