With cryptocurrency investments continuing to peak, some investors in the space are being subjected to a series of violent encounters with thieves, also known as wrench attacks. Such attacks can involve kidnapping, torture and coercion, all done with the intent of trying to obtain the information of wealthy crypto moguls. 

What's a wrench attack?
This is a colloquialism referring to "violent physical attacks on cryptocurrency investors," intending to obtain the investor's cryptocurrency or bitcoin password, said NPR. The phrase was coined by an online meme that "mocked how easily high-tech security can be undone by hitting someone with a wrench," said The Associated Press.

Experts note that sophisticated cybersecurity measures may not be useful under the threat of physical violence. Investors are "very proud of the digital locks they put around their crypto to guard it," crypto reporter Jeff John Roberts said to NPR. But if "you are being beaten with a wrench, you are probably going to tell the password."

One high-profile attack happened in January, when abductors kidnapped crypto executive David Ballard and "cut one of his fingers off and bound his girlfriend," said Roberts. Another case involved a man who was reportedly "kidnapped and tortured for nearly three weeks in a townhouse in New York City in an effort to separate him from his fortune."

Why are they happening?
Crypto has "surged in value, with bitcoin up 54% in the last year, minting a whole new array of potential deep-pocketed targets," said The Wall Street Journal. That's giving thieves new motivations to physically target people. 

In addition, a "vast amount of personal data has been stolen and dumped in the past decade," allowing thieves to find out significant personal information about their victims, said the Journal. Cybercriminals are now "adept at figuring out their victims' home address by cross-referencing databases." 

The attacks mark a notable shift in strategy for thieves. Stealing crypto is "almost as old as cryptocurrency itself, but it's usually done by hacking," said the AP. "North Korean state hackers alone are believed to have stolen billions of dollars' worth of crypto in recent years." These in-person attacks represent a ramping up of violence.

New studies and patents are "increasingly less likely to break with the past in ways that push science and technology in new directions," according to a 2023 paper published in Nature that found there was a new lack of disruptive scientific discoveries. But not all scientists agree, arguing that science changes over time and so does what counts as "disruptive."

What did the commentators say?
Barriers to scientific research have grown. "Modern-day researchers have much less freedom to go in unusual directions because of the rigid structures of academic careers and funding," said Nature. There's also "intensifying pressure to publish," causing researchers to "salami-slice" and spread their ideas "more thinly across more papers and reducing the disruptiveness or novelty of each article." 

"Over the long term, science hardly looks like a steady accumulation of earth-shattering discoveries," said The New European. It's also difficult to define what qualifies as a disruptive discovery. "There's no way we can measure something like this with the certainty of measuring an object's temperature or mass." 

The seeming lack of disruptive science may be related to the nature of science itself. Science becomes "more complex as it matures," said University of Georgia Professor John Drake at Forbes. "The simplest questions are often the first to be answered, and what remains are challenges that are more subtle, more interdependent and more difficult to resolve." But this "does not necessarily imply stagnation."

What next?
The outlook for groundbreaking science is bleak. A total of 1,753 grants "worth nearly $1.4 billion across numerous areas of research" have been affected by budget cuts by the Trump administration, said CNN. The result "will be slower economic growth, less innovation and new tech startups, and even more diminished competitiveness vis-à-vis China," said Robert Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, to The New York Times.

In response to the cuts, 16 states have sued the administration. "Institutions will not be able to maintain essential research infrastructure and will be forced to significantly scale back or halt research, abandon numerous projects and lay off staff," said the cohort in the lawsuit.