The Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde

Welcome to the Know the Difference Minute 

Traditional thinking was: cryptocurrency was virtually untraceable, especially if it was stolen. Once it was gone, it was gone. Well, not so much anymore. 

In 2016, there was a hack of bitcoins worth $71 million then but $4.5 billion now. Yesterday, the Feds busted a hipster New York couple holding those coins. Investigators followed their digital trail and nailed them.   

There’s hope that stolen crypto isn’t gone forever. The FBI clawed back over $2 million of the Colonial Pipeline ransom.  And new forensic investigation firms are popping up with the skills to chase shady transactions and stolen coins. 

Experts say, if you own crypto; keep it in a hardware wallet—basically a fancy USB drive. But don’t lose your password. $140 billion in crypto is in lost or otherwise stranded wallets.

I’m Dave Spano from Annex Wealth Management.  That is your Know the Difference Minute.