French authorities have reportedly rescued the co-founder of hardware wallet firm Ledger and his wife after they were kidnapped and held for ransom.

According to a new article by The New York Times, Dave Balland and his wife were abducted from their home in France earlier this week by bad actors who then contacted another founder of the company and demanded a large amount of crypto for their release.

The report says that Balland was found and released by police on Wednesday about 30 miles away from his home while his wife was found 80 miles away tied up in a car a day later.

His wife was unharmed but Balland had to be hospitalized due to his hand being mutilated by the kidnappers – a photo of which was used to pressure Ledger into paying the ransom.

In the report, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that during the negotiations, some of the ransom was paid but that the assets were tracked, frozen and seized.

As stated by Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier on the social media platform X,

“We are deeply relieved that David and his wife have been released, and are now safe. I have reached out to David, and our thoughts continue to be with him, his family, and the members of our team that worked with David while he was at Ledger. We’re grateful to law enforcement for their swift action. Our top priority was always to allow law enforcement to do their jobs and protect the integrity of the investigation.”

Nine men and one woman, aged between 20 and 40, were arrested and questioned about the kidnapping, though no other details about the suspects were released. In the report, Beccaua says that the crimes of kidnapping, torture and armed extortion carry potential life sentences.

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Check Price Action

Follow us on X, Facebook and Telegram

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

&nbsp

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Generated Image: Midjourney

An ancient Bitcoin wallet suddenly sprung to life this week and moved more than $257 million worth of BTC after 11 years of slumber.

The crypto tracker Lookonchain first spotted the unknown address, which moved 2,700 BTC to another wallet on Tuesday.

The long-dormant wallet received the trove of BTC in December 2013, when the top crypto asset only cost $625.84. BTC was priced at $95,361 at the time of Tuesday’s transfer, meaning the USD value of the wallet’s holdings skyrocketed by a staggering 15,137.4% in 11 years.

Data from BitInfoCharts indicates the long-dormant wallet did receive trace amounts of Bitcoin a handful of times over the last 11 years, though those transactions appear to be the result of dusting attacks.

Dusting attacks involve hackers and scammers sending minuscule amounts of cryptocurrency (dust) to numerous personal wallets in an attempt to break the wallet holders’ privacy.

The scammers then try to trace the transactional activity of targeted wallets in order to identify the people or companies behind them.

Bitcoin is trading at $98,687 at time of writing. The top-ranked crypto asset by market cap is up more than 3% in the past 24 hours and is less than 1% down from its all-time high of $99,645, which it set on November 22nd.

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Check Price Action

Follow us on X, Facebook and Telegram

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

&nbsp

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

Generated Image: Midjourney

Phantom, the non-custodial crypto wallet for decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens on Solana, has announced its acquisition of web3 security platform Blowfish.

The Solana (SOL) based cryptocurrency wallet disclosed the transaction on Nov. 19, noting in a blog post that the move aims to bolster security for wallet users. Blowfish’s team, known for protecting users and assets by alerting against scams and fraud, will join Phantom.

According to Phantom, acquiring Blowfish is a key step in combating harmful decentralized applications and bugs. The wallet has recently faced downtime and a buggy update, which affected user experience and safety.

Commenting on Blowfish’s role in enhancing user security, Phantom chief executive officer Brandon Millman stated:

“With their help, we’re going to offer the most secure and user-friendly platform to access, and interact with, apps, tokens, and collectibles across all devices.”

Blowfish has reportedly prevented over 2.8 million scams and scanned more than 1.3 billion transactions, securing assets worth over $18 billion. This capability will now be integrated into Phantom, with Blowfish’s current service being sunset.

In June this year, a fake Phantom wallet pushed on the Apple App Store saw unsuspecting users lose assets.

On Nov. 13, a buggy update caused some iOS users to be locked out of their accounts. The glitch introduced a bug that reset wallets and added a prompt for users to log in again with their recovery phrases. Several users reported losing funds, including one who claimed a $600,000 loss.

It’s important to note that Phantom is a non-custodial wallet and does not access user funds or store recovery phrases.

Separately, digital asset custody and wallet infrastructure platform Fireblocks recently launched a non-custodial wallet-as-a-service solution aimed at advancing security for user assets across the industry.