Game developer and erstwhile crypto enthusiast Alex Amsel, aka Sillytuna, has reported being forced to hand over almost $24 million worth of crypto in a violent robbery.

The attack involved “weapons, kidnap and rape threats,” according to Amsel’s post on X. He reports being “bruised,” and suggests that attackers had “axes over [his] hands and feet.”

He’s also appealed to “all those who trace such things,” and has offered a 10% bounty of any funds recovered, “even if you were involved.”

Read more: Copy, Paste, Rekt: Ethereum address poisoning strikes again 

The transfer was flagged by blockchain security firm Peckshield, which seemingly assumed the loss was due to “address poisoning.” Amsel responded to the post to deny the claim, but multiple crypto news outlets ran with the address poisoning angle regardless.

These reports also mention the physical attack, indicating either a misunderstanding of what an address poisoning attack is, or an inability to differentiate between a copy-paste error and a violent kidnapping.

Similarly, Alex Svanevik, CEO of analytics platform Nansen, posted an AI analysis which identified the incident as address poisoning, and recommended contacting Maker to freeze the DAI (which isn’t possible).

However, Svanevik does admit that the analysis is “experimental” and may be “incorrect.”

In a message to Protos, Amsel said, “I can’t divulge any more info than I have on Twitter but it’s nothing to do with poisoning.

“I’m not anon so not hard to track down IRL, nor are many other peope who sadly this is going to happen to if we don’t crack down and show you can’t walk away with the money.

“There are substantial efforts behind the scenes as I’m acutely aware that timing is critical.”

Follow the money

Shortly after 5pm UTC on Wednesday, $23.6 million of Aave-USDC was transferred to the attackers on Ethereum. 

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham traced the onward movement of funds. The majority of funds are held in two Ethereum addresses which hold $20 million in the (unfreezable) DAI stablecoin.

Additionally, the attackers bridged around $2.5 million to Hyperliquid via Arbitrum, using Wagyu accounts to withdraw as privacy coin monero. A further $1 million was bridged to bitcoin via LiFi.

Wagyu’s developer came under harsh criticism from the crypto security community for not blocking the transfers. The developer, who goes by the pseudonym PerpetualCow, defended themselves, claiming they were sleeping while the transactions were ongoing; they also insist they “didn’t make any money off this.”

Yesterday’s incident is the latest in a line of increasingly common physical attacks on crypto users, often dubbed “wrench” attacks, in reference to a viral xkcd comic.

These attacks often follow the leaks of personal data of crypto-linked individuals.

Read more: DeFi karma: Garden hacked for $11M after bridging Lazarus’ loot

End of the road

In December of last year, Sillytuna posted a blog to Medium, in which he says he’s left crypto behind.

The industry, he wrote, “became dominated by Silicon Valley, the worst of tech bros, and the ever present scammers.”

Despite crediting crypto with being able to “semi-retire and go back to my love of making indie games,” he felt unable to “stand by and support the direction things have gone, politically and otherwise.”

In response to the robbery, he jokingly said the “worst thing about all this” is being called a crypto influencer. The funds were “long-term holdings” set aside for “future causes, open source, that kind of thing.”

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