Bitcoin Blackmail Attempts Are On the Rise – But No One’s Paying

It was an audacious and callous scheme. A parcel bomb, mailed to a crowded German market, with a ransom note demanding €10 million in bitcoins. Had the device packed with gunpowder, shrapnel, and nails detonated, the casualties would have been extensive. In the event, the bomb, like the ransom demand, proved to be a damp squib. Bitcoin blackmail attempts – like everything else associated with bitcoin – have soared this year. There’s just one problem, from the perpetrators’ perspective: no one’s paying.