A newly searchable database compiled from New York City's public property assessment records has drawn sharp criticism from crypto industry figures, who warn it makes it trivially easy to identify where wealthy individuals live. The tool draws on the city's FY2027 property assessment roll, supplemental market value data and tax guides, all published through the city's Open Data portal, and organizes them into an easily searchable format covering nearly every unit in New York's luxury buildings.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams called it “the worst mass doxxing I've ever seen,” arguing that the database's creators “clearly took an incredibly expansive view of ‘could be’ and just doxxed a huge percentage of all expensive apartments in New York City.”
From Public Records to a Target List
The underlying data was technically public before, but critics say that consolidating it into a clean, searchable interface changes the risk calculus entirely. Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz described the database as “unsettling,” noting that “while this data was largely public prior to this in a messy way they have cleaned it, organized it, singled out ‘the rich,’ and mass distributed it — only the 50th sign this year of privacy continuing to become scarcer.”
“So this is a list of wealthy people and their addresses. As we've seen in France and Sweden this leads to crypto kidnappings, torturings and murders,” wrote Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter, adding that “real estate records are semi public but this is an easily searchable database and target list.”
A Surging Wave of 'Wrench Attacks'
The backlash comes as physical attacks tied to cryptocurrency wealth have escalated sharply. According to a February 2026 report from security firm CertiK, 72 verified crypto “wrench attacks” occurred in 2025, a 75% jump from the year before, resulting in $40.9 million in combined losses. A more recent CertiK mid-year report found 52 verified attacks in just the first half of 2026, with financial exposure reaching $124 million — nearly twelve times the figure from the same period a year earlier.
Several recent cases illustrate the stakes. In April 2026, French authorities charged 88 suspects, including more than ten minors, in a crackdown on violent crypto kidnapping schemes. The following month, U.S. prosecutors indicted three men over armed home invasions across California tied to millions of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency. In June 2026, two Texas brothers pleaded guilty to kidnapping a Minnesota family and forcing them to transfer $8 million in crypto.
Against that backdrop, critics argue that tools making it easier to pinpoint where crypto-wealthy individuals live are not a neutral transparency exercise but a direct safety hazard, one that could make New York's luxury housing market a roadmap for the same kind of violent extortion already documented across Europe and the United States.
