why industry veteran Jameson Lopp sees apathy as the greatest threat

Welcome to Slate Sundays, CryptoSlate’s new weekly feature showcasing in-depth interviews, expert analysis, and thought-provoking op-eds that go beyond the headlines to explore the ideas and voices shaping the future of crypto.

It’s not often that you meet someone with as much integrity as Jameson Lopp. Being in his presence for any length of time, whether online or in meatspace (where you would know him under a pseudonym), it starts to rub off on you and make you want to be a better Bitcoiner; a better human, for that matter.

Few people have done more to advance the area of Bitcoin and crypto security than Jameson. Despite peddling a message no one wants to hear (until they’ve lost access to their private keys), he remains undeterred, making it his life’s work to educate people of the potential dangers surrounding their crypto security setups and the Bitcoin network in general.

His particular brand of product isn’t sexy. It doesn’t lure with the promise of Lambos or NGU. Bitcoin security is such an uncompelling topic, in fact, that Jameson’s found himself bumped from the main stage at large events. The rise in wrench attacks is such a “Debbie Downer” that he’s been relegated to the developer’s stage.

“The large non-technical conferences generally don’t even want the technical people on stage talking about the problems inherent to the system,” he says. “Having rational, practical discussions about the problems in the space conflicts with a lot of the narratives that people want to push out there to pump it up and increase adoption.”

As co-founder and Chief Security Officer of Bitcoin security provider Casa, creator of Bitcoin real-time node monitoring platform statoshi, a slew of additional side projects aimed at raising awareness, and over half a million followers on X, Jameson confesses he’s “inundated,” and somewhat “overwhelmed” trying to stay on top of it all.

I caught up with the living legend and industry OG to discuss his extraordinary life, invaluable work, the rise in physical Bitcoin attacks, and everything in between.

Jameson Lopp and mastering the art of disappearance

Tell me what you know about Jameson Lopp, and I’ll tell you how many years you’ve been in Bitcoin. On second thought, keep that information to yourself. As Jameson’s posted and reposted on X:

“The first rule of the 21 million club is that you do not talk about joining the 21 million club.”

Subject to a grueling SWATting attack in 2017, he’s lived firsthand through the trauma inflicted on Bitcoiners when his house was raided after the police received fraudulent calls from an attacker claiming to be him.

The caller told the police that he had shot someone 15 times with an assault rifle, was holding others hostage, and had rigged the front door with explosives, before demanding a ransom of $50,000 in Bitcoin and threatening to shoot any approaching police officers.

It was the stuff of movies and the type of ordeal that would have triggered most people to raise a white flag and retire from the industry altogether.

But Jameson Lopp isn’t most people.

Not only did he hold his head high and continue to remain defiant, but he set about making himself impossible to find—while educating others to erase their own data trails. From using ad-blockers and VPNs online to establishing a second home as a decoy address, Jameson’s footprints are in invisible ink.

Not even his family knows where he lives.

“The easier and safer thing for me to have done would be to completely disappear,” he acknowledges, “but I felt like that would be giving in to the pressure from bad actors. I wanted to continue to leverage the reputation that I had built and be able to reach people and talk about Bitcoin.”

I recall inventing a pseudonym one night at a party and making up a whole new life. It was amusing at first until I couldn’t sustain a plausible Spanish accent, and kept contradicting myself until the jig was up. I can’t even imagine the mental and physical logistics involved in living this way long-term. It’s pretty extreme:

“The hardest part is that it’s a lifestyle change. When I started off, I was creating a bunch of different pseudonyms that I was using with different people in meatspace, and it quickly became too difficult to keep track of, so I settled on just one pseudonym and one identity.

Then, of course, I have my real identity that I only use to interact with people remotely, as myself, my original government identity… It gets more complicated if you’re pulling more people into your situation, like family, and children.”

I bet. But Jameson has a signature look. Instantly recognizable, his unmistakable beard is streaked with silver like the mystical bristles of a seasoned wizard. Has his cover ever been blown?

“It’s extremely rare,” he replies, “but that’s one of my tricky things and a sort of balancing act that I’m trying to navigate. I don’t go on mainstream media shows for that reason. I don’t want my face to be broadcast to millions and millions of people. I do smaller podcasts and stuff, which are only going to be seen by the people who are already deep into this space.”

200 known wrench attacks on Bitcoiners so far

When I saw one of Jameson’s latest posts on X, warning about the rising number of wrench attacks and pointing to a well-maintained log of known physical Bitcoin attacks, I knew I had to reach out. But given his ability to vanish in plain sight, I didn’t expect him to answer. I was pleasantly surprised. He may be impossible to physically find, but he’s available at the click of a mouse to anyone who wants to talk Bitcoin.

According to Jameson’s records, there are over 200 documented physical attacks on Bitcoiners, more than 30 of those in the first half of 2025. Why is the number going up so alarmingly?

“It’s going up because the total value and size of the ecosystem are going up, and the overall awareness of the ecosystem is growing. So, you know, this is just a natural phenomenon… There’s always going to be some tiny percentage of sociopaths who are willing to hurt other people for their own personal gain.”

What’s more interesting, he points out, is the general trend of incidents carried out by organized crime groups specializing in this type of attack.

“There was a slew of them up and down the east coast of America a few years ago, and then recently there’s been a slew of them in France, and in both cases, law enforcement eventually arrested the people behind it.”

I mention hearing him say previously that, oftentimes, wrench attacks are orchestrated by people who don’t reside in that country but specifically travel there to carry out the attack. He nods:

“My reach and understanding of all of this is limited by what’s being reported, but I’m seeing a pattern in Southeast Asia of expats who are being targeted by what seems to be organized crime from their country of origin.

I’ve seen a number of attacks, for example, where Russian citizens who are either vacationing or living in Southeast Asia are getting hit by Russian organized crime. They’re coming into the country, wrench attacking them, and then trying to get out as quickly as possible, and presumably trying to leverage jurisdictional arbitrage.”

I ask whether wrench attacks mostly happen to high-profile people, and he shrugs.

“It’s hard to say because I never know who these people are. I know “high-profile” people who are on X. But if they’re high-profile on Instagram, I have no idea, and I don’t use TikTok. So, high profile is very relative and fragmented.”

He says he does know of several victims who were Instagram influencers who were “basically flaunting their wealth,” and bragging about their expensive cars, wristwatches, and luxury lifestyles. He shakes his head:

“If you are on any sort of public network and you are flaunting your wealth, that’s one of the more risky things that you could be doing.”

Best advice to protect yourself? Never KYC

With most jurisdictions hellbent on combating money laundering and counter-terrorism finance, it’s almost impossible to be active in this space without handing over mounds of private data. Unfortunately for many of us, however, this often ends up being doxxed online, like in the Ledger breach of 2020, or Coinbase just a few weeks ago.

What can we do to protect ourselves in the era of KYC without going to the extreme measures of buying a proxy house or being untraceable by even the most highly skilled of private investigators?

“The safest thing to do is to never KYC and only use non-KYC services. Those are always going to be less convenient. They’re not as user-friendly, and there are not as many of them out there. If you’re using KYC services, I would say preferably you’re not giving them your home address.”

He acknowledges this can be tricky since most providers require your place of domicile, but you can reduce the risk by considering which document you upload.

“Personally, when I’m doing KYC, I prefer to use my passport as my document because there’s no address on there. Then I will always initially try giving them a private mailbox address that I have. Sometimes that works. But if they have stricter and higher levels of KYC, then I often find that getting rejected.”

When this happens, Jameson reluctantly hands over the address of his now legal residency, which he rents but doesn’t spend time in.

“Of course, that is going to be out of reach for most people to just have another address that they’re not actually using,” he concedes.

And what about providing a utility bill? There’s no workaround for that:

“That’s really tough for me because I have no utility bills in my name by design.”

A proud Libertarian and fully fledged Bitcoiner

As a self-proclaimed Libertarian, I ask Jameson whether he’s ever voted, or if that’s even possible now. He smooths down his beard and ponders my words, saying he stopped voting when he realized “no Libertarian was ever going to become president” or win any high-level office.

“The bi-party system is too entrenched for that. But no, I definitely have no intention of ever registering to vote again because of the public records that that creates. You know, the ROI of voting, like the actual impact of my votes versus the amount of time I would have to spend evaluating all the politicians, their platforms, and whether or not I even trust them, it’s just easier for me to ignore politics as much as possible.”

And with so much hoop-jumping and painstaking planning behind every move he makes, whether online or in the physical realm, is all this really worth it? Did he ever consider quitting completely? He pauses for a while and reflects:

“There’s this cybersecurity saying. Something like the safest way to use a computer is to never turn it on, never touch it, never use it… The computer, and especially with the advent of the internet, is a massively powerful tool, but it’s a two-way device, right? On one hand, you have access to essentially the entire sum of human knowledge. On the other hand, you’re exposing yourself to billions of potential attackers. You’re essentially opening up a door to the rest of the world for them to start knocking on.”

I say that reminds me of a similar refrain: A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. He smiles and agrees. Let’s face it, there’s no world in which Jameson leaves the computer untouched.

“The most important thing that you can do for Bitcoin is to talk about it. That was one of the more important aspects of my life. I didn’t want to give up on that.”

Bitcoin corporate treasuries and Saylor’s outsized advantage

Jameson’s conviction is indisputable, and the lengths he’s gone to advocate for Bitcoin deserve a Nobel prize. Did he always expect the industry to evolve this way, with $100K price units, Bitcoin corporate treasuries, and an AI and crypto czar in the White House?

“I’ve always been surprised by the level of volatility,” he admits. “When I initially got into Bitcoin, I was viewing it as sort of a 30-year generation-level savings account. I wasn’t seeing it as a speculative investment that was going to go up many orders of magnitude just over the next decade.”

That’s not to say he’s pleased with everything, though. Bitcoin at the Oval Office is a far cry from the peer-to-peer electronic cash system originally presented to the world.

“I certainly have a lot of concerns with the current state of the ecosystem, mainly that a lot of the adoption that seems to be happening right now is happening through TradFi vehicles that don’t even give people an option to take self-custody. So, that worries me both from a cultural perspective and a systemic risk perspective of where the system is headed.”

With Michael Saylor pledging to buy Bitcoin until Strategy scoops up 10% of the supply and Bitcoin treasury companies popping up like weeds, I imagine this is quite a concern…

“If too much Bitcoin gets concentrated in too few hands, we run the risk of essentially recreating a highly centralized system,” he replies.

He confesses to being “conflicted” over the rising phenomenon of Bitcoin treasury companies because, on the one hand, Bitcoin is for everyone, yet, on the other, Strategy is “so far ahead and they keep pulling out further ahead.” He would like to see a more level playing field, which is why he decided to invest in David Bailey’s Nakamoto.

“It’s not because I think that corporate Bitcoin treasury adoption is the best thing since sliced bread. It’s because I felt like we needed to have a broader and more diverse group of corporate treasuries to compete with Saylor, to try to slow down how much he can continue accumulating. He has hundreds of thousands of coins. What if he got to the point of having like five or 10% of the total supply? That’s reaching systemic risk levels.”

Jameson on quantum computing (or, we’re all ‘screwed’)

I ask what the greatest threat to the Bitcoin network is: centralization or quantum computing? Jameson’s been tweeting about the latter a lot recently:

“There’s multiple long-term existential issues that I worry about. Quantum is an issue that I worry about in conjunction with things like ossification and scaling.”

He continues:

“With quantum computing, there’s like half a dozen problems that are going on in parallel, and in order to “solve the quantum computing problem,” we’ll have to come to consensus on these half a dozen things simultaneously, which is pretty much unprecedented. Given the slowing and the increasing difficulty and consensus changes to the Bitcoin protocol, this is why I started talking about it a year ago.”

He compares the quantum computing problem to climate change, in that it’s an ever-present threat, yet seems distant when there are more pressing issues to face.

“I think it’s a similar type of problem within Bitcoin, but it’s exacerbated by the fact that, first, it takes years to get consensus on a change. Then it takes multiple years after the consensus change is activated for the rest of the ecosystem to implement it, and, in this case, there’s an
additional delay of multiple years because people will have to migrate their funds. We’ve never been in that situation before.”

And how far away is quantum computing?

There are a number of predictions on this, he explains, from those who say it’s already here to others who believe it will never arrive because of “some quantum physics level attribute that will prevent us from ever achieving that level of computation.” What we know for certain, he says, is that several government and standards agencies are advising people to prepare for it within at least five years.

“Assuming that’s conservative and that we have at least five years, then, you know, maybe we actually have 10 or 15 years… I certainly hope that we have 10 years. If we only have five years, I think we’re screwed because it will take several years to get the consensus change, and then several years for it to matriculate and everyone to migrate. I’m hoping we have at least 10 years, that would be a good buffer.”

Sleeping soundly in a world of uncertainty

Of all the shifting narratives and cultural clashes over the past few years, the one that bothers Jameson the most is the pervasive dogma that Bitcoin is “inevitable” and “perfect” as it is. This is a dangerous view, in his opinion—and one often purveyed by proponents of ossification. He says:

“That leads to what I consider to be the greatest threat to Bitcoin over the long term, which is apathy. If people are apathetic about continuing to talk about improving Bitcoin, that’s when it becomes weak and more vulnerable to new threats that can emerge.”

Between perilous narratives, God-like AI, centralization of the network, and quantum computing looming ahead, the future feels pretty bleak. There’s so much to worry about, I exclaim.

As a security pioneer and defender of the soundest money the world has ever seen, does Jameson manage to get any sleep at all? He frowns for a moment before replying:

“I try not to let all of these things that are outside of my control keep me up at night. Like I said before, continuing to talk about Bitcoin and discuss its problems is one of the best ways that people can contribute to the space…

It’s about keeping people interested and engaged and thinking about what we can do to address problems before they happen.”

Mentioned in this article