On a balmy night in 2023 on the east coast of Spain, Olivier Acuña sat at his laptop to switch his life financial savings to a different cryptocurrency pockets, as he had completed a whole lot of occasions earlier than.
“Sending crypto always induces anxiety,” Acuña advised CoinDesk. This rang painfully true that evening.
As quickly as Acuña hit ship, it was over: $400,000 value of crypto — all his cash — was gone, pilfered by an nameless phishing scammer. A piercing noise rang in Acuña’s ears, his temperature rose and his fists clenched.
Acuña’s loss demonstrates that nobody is resistant to crypto hacks. He is a seven-year crypto business veteran, somebody who grasps the necessity for wariness given the risks that lurk round blockchains. Earlier than that, he was a journalist for many years, the place staying alert was a should as he confronted violent drug cartels in Mexico and torture in jail.
And but he grew to become one of many many victims of crypto scams. In 2023, U.S. officers acquired 69,000 stories of crypto theft totaling greater than $5.6 billion.
Getting that cash again might be exhausting. In case your regular checking account will get breached, insurance coverage will nearly actually cowl your losses. However there is no extremely regulated system like that in crypto, which is famously and fairly deliberately decentralized. Whereas that disintermediation provides crypto customers the liberty from establishments that they crave, it is also a double-edged sword. The omission of gatekeepers also can go away individuals a single button click on away from damage.
The hack itself was nothing particular. As a result of Acuña couldn’t entry his funds on a Ledger {hardware} machine, he reached out to buyer help through social media. An impersonator swooped in and, following half-hour of deception, Acuña was caught within the scammer’s net.
“Phishing scams remain incredibly prolific today,” Adrian Hetman, head of triaging at Web3 safety researcher Immunefi, advised CoinDesk. “Phishing attempts are a growing concern in crypto, as criminals see it as an effective way to steal user funds at scale and apply social engineering for more sophisticated attacks on project infrastructure.”
Acuña was helpless once more, this time on the mercy of a blockchain that was as soon as his salvation following a horrendous ordeal of false imprisonment in Mexico.
Working undercover
Acuña started working as a journalist within the Nineteen Nineties — a profession that confronted him with authorities censorship, false imprisonment and demise threats.
His work on organized crime, elections and corruption quickly bought him observed by United Press Worldwide (UPI) and Reforma, the place he started diving deeper into one of the infamous and violent drug cartels on the planet.
He was primarily based in Sinaloa, a state in Mexico that runs down the west coast from Los Mochis to Mazatlán. The fertile, mountainous territory emerged as a hotbed of organized crime, resulting in the formation of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel.
Acuña’s protection of the cartel finally led to him working independently as a contract journalist together with his work being picked up by the likes of Related Press and Reuters. This was when his profession in Mexico reached a turbulent crescendo.
Authorities caught wind of one among Acuña’s tales on corruption and determined sufficient was sufficient. They accused him of hiding a weapon that belonged to the Legal professional Basic’s workplace. Acuña says he was tortured for 16 hours.
“One day, I was thrown into a vehicle in the most violent manner you can imagine,” he said. “They sent a police commander widely known for torturing people, and they abducted me. For 16 hours they waterboarded me, tied me up, cut off my circulation, folded me backwards. At one point, they told me, ‘Next door we have your family. We will bring them in here one by one and kill them in front of you until you tell us where the gun is.’”
Acuña was subsequently jailed for 2 years on accusations — which Acuña says have been false — that have been later dropped. He filed a human rights lawsuit in opposition to Mexican authorities.
Crypto salvation, or not
In 2017, Acuña wiped the slate clear of his tortuous previous, getting into the splendidly bizarre world of crypto, having fun with stints as a public relations officer at funds agency Electroneum, a tv producer at BloxLive and most not too long ago one other public relations function at DePIN firm IOTEX.
His powerful background ready him for the crypto business, which regardless of rising acceptance by the normal finance sector, continues to grapple with the Wild West surroundings of its early days.
Whereas Acuña won’t have the commonest backstory for these working in crypto, it stays a pertinent reminder that the attract of the crypto business isn’t just speculative monetary achieve: It’s additionally an business that checks the ability of governments, banks and elites, which appealed to Acuña.
“The first day that I began writing about crypto and blockchain, I said, ‘Here it is, the solution to all of the issues of the lack of freedom of expression. Here it is, the solution to government corruption. Here it is, finally something that I can have faith in and have and do passionately,’” Acuña advised CoinDesk.
Regardless of dropping his life financial savings, Acuña continues to work within the crypto business — though he warns that it’s a good distance away from going mainstream.
“If we ever want mass adoption, this needs to be seamless,” he stated. In the mean time, the consumer expertise is “anxiety-inducing. Every time I send crypto now, I think, ‘Have I done it wrong? Am I going to lose my money?’ Each and every time.’”
Until “we get an application where all your crypto is in that same app, and it doesn’t matter what freaking network it is, you can convert it into whatever you want, to convert it and send it, then I just don’t see it” taking off.
This stays a key hurdle for the business; tech-savvy millennials know easy methods to purchase an asset on Ethereum, bridge it to Solana and purchase a memecoin on Pump.enjoyable earlier than sending that to an trade, however the majority of normal individuals don’t.
“I don’t want to exit crypto, I’m still excited about crypto,” Acuña said. “Will moving money around always be traumatic? Yes. But I love this sector.”
