$5 Wrench Attack
Security● Common
A physical coercion attack where an attacker uses threats or violence to force a victim to reveal private keys or transfer bitcoin. Named after the XKCD comic showing that cryptography is irrelevant if someone hits you with a $5 wrench until you comply.
Technical Notes
Mitigations: plausible deniability (hidden wallets, passphrases), duress wallets (decoy with small balance), multisig requiring distributed parties, timelocks, geographic distribution of keys, social recovery. 'Don't tell people how much bitcoin you have.'
Metadata
Visibility: Public
Created:1/3/2026by System