Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Pavel Nyashin, a 24-year-old popular Russian bitcoin vlogger and trader, got beaten up and robbed, reports the Russian TV channel NTV.
He parted with a safe containing Bitcoins worth RUB 24 million (around $413 000) and important documents.
Nyashin, who has a YouTube channel in which he shows people how to trade in cryptocurrencies, got attacked in his newly acquired posh condo in Saint Petersburg, just weeks after he posted a video about his new home. He also has a penchant of bragging on the internet about how rich he is.
“They came in, hit me with a pistol in the eye, knocked me on the ground and tied me up”, Nyashin told NTV. “Then they went to the second floor and beat up and tied my friend. Then they started threatening us and wanted to kidnap us. I told them there was a safe in the house. They took it and left.” The robbers also smashed all his home appliances and took the computer he was using to trade on the cryptocurrency exchanges. It is yet to be established whether the thieves cracked his wallets and accounts.
Nyashin, who was briefly hospitalized after the attack, has filed a complaint with the police and has testified. He said he can recognize one of the attackers who was not wearing a mask, unlike the rest. He also told the police that a few days prior to the attack, an unknown man got in touch with him and claimed he was an investor who wanted Nyashin to trade on the cryptocurrency exchanges on his behalf. The vlogger does not exclude the possibility the man to have been one of the attackers.
Russian users have commented on the internet, that Nyashin should have kept silent about his riches – “Money likes silence”, one said. “Easy come, easy go”, others noted.
According to CCN, this is the second attack against a bitcoin entrepreneur in the recent months. In December, Pavel Lerner, an analyst at EXMO LLP who has been involved in several cryptocurrency startups, was kidnapped from his office in Ukraine’s capital Kiev. He was released after paying a ransom of $1 million in Bitcoin.