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Paris kidnap bid highlights crypto data security risks

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Paris kidnap bid highlights crypto data security risks
Paris was the scene of a cryptocurrency-related attempted kidnapping last week.

New regulations threaten the security of the personal data of cryptocurrency users and may expose them to “physical danger,” the platform at the center of last week’s Paris kidnapping attempt has claimed.

“A ticking time bomb,” said Alexandre Stachtchenko, director of strategy at French platform Paymium, referring to the way information must now be collected during cryptocurrency transfers under EU rules.

He did not directly link this to a kidnapping attempt on Tuesday which, according to a police source, targeted the daughter and grandson of Paymium’s chief executive.

“If there is a leak of one of these databases from which I can find out who has money and where they live, then the next day it is on the dark web, and the day after there is someone outside your home,” Stachtchenko said.

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Data theft is commonplace. On Thursday, the leading cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, said criminals had bribed and duped their way into stealing digital assets from its users, then tried to blackmail the exchange to keep the crime quiet.

Instead of paying up, Coinbase informed US regulators about the theft and made plans to spend between $180 million and $400 million to reimburse victims and handle the situation.

Name and address

Following the kidnapping attempt, Paymium issued a statement urging authorities to immediately reinforce the protection of companies within the sector, after other similar incidents this year.

Founded in 2011 and presenting itself as a European pioneer of bitcoin trading, Paymium also cited “the highly dangerous aspects of certain financial regulations, either recently adopted or in the making.”

It added, “With the unprecedented organization of massive and sometimes disproportionate collection of personal data, public authorities contribute to putting the physical safety of millions of cryptocurrency holders in France, and more widely in Europe, at risk.”

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In its sights are rules which came into force at the end of 2024 and which extended the Travel Rule in place for traditional finance transfers to include crypto assets.

The rules now require platforms to gather details about the beneficiary and, in return, transmit certain information about the customer to the receiving institution, including their name and postal address.

Also to be disclosed is the “address” of a customer’s cryptocurrency wallet, which shows details of their account and transactions, said Stachtchenko.

Such sensitive data is sometimes exchanged and stored insecurely by certain players.

Regulatory changes to tighten the rules on the crypto sector aim to “prevent the financial system from being used for corruption, money laundering, drug trafficking” among other criminal activities, said Sarah Compani, a lawyer specializing in digital assets.

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‘Nouveau riche’

Data collection is carried out by parties including banks, insurance companies and crypto-service providers, which are “supervised” and subject to heavy “security obligations, particularly IT and cybersecurity,” said William O’Rorke, a lawyer at cryptocurrency firm ORWL.

In 2027, European anti-money laundering regulations will restrict the use of wallets and cryptocurrencies that allow the holders to remain anonymous.

It follows a French law adopted last month to fight narcotrafficking, which targets anonymization devices such as the cryptocurrency “mixers” used to render funds untraceable.

There are many “legitimate interests” in having such tools however, said cybersecurity expert Renaud Lifchitz.

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He noted that they are sometimes used by journalists, or by activists opposed to an authoritarian regime which controls the traditional banking system.

The debate is more “political” than “security-related,” argued O’Rorke.

The recent kidnappings and attempted kidnappings can be explained above all by a “somewhat nouveau riche” and “ill-prepared” cryptocurrency sector, he said.

Since 2014, software developer Jameson Lopp has recorded 219 physical attacks targeting cryptocurrency users.

© 2025 AFP

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3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks With More Potential Than Any Cryptocurrency | The Motley Fool

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3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks With More Potential Than Any Cryptocurrency | The Motley Fool

SoundHound AI, Lemonade, and CoreWeave will all profit from that secular trend.

Over the past few years, many growth-oriented investors with a high tolerance for risk have pivoted toward the cryptocurrency market. Several of the top tokens — like Bitcoin (BTC 2.52%) and Ether (ETH 3.84%) — generated impressive gains within a short time. However, many of the smaller altcoins and meme coins fizzled out during the last crypto winter.

Instead of chasing those volatile tokens, which are usually driven by supply and demand, it might be smarter to invest in the market’s more speculative artificial intelligence (AI) plays. Let’s take a look at three of those promising tech stocks — SoundHound AI (SOUN +1.65%), Lemonade (LMND 0.97%), and CoreWeave (CRWV +6.55%) — and see why they could have more growth potential than the market’s hottest cryptocurrencies.

Image source: Getty Images.

SoundHound AI

SoundHound AI develops AI-powered voice and audio recognition tools. Its namesake app can identify songs by hearing just a few seconds of recorded audio or a few hummed bars. However, it generates most of its revenue and growth from Houndify, its developer-oriented platform for creating customized voice recognition apps for a wide range of industries.

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SoundHound AI Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(1.65%) $0.18

Current Price

$11.10

SoundHound has been acquiring smaller companies to expand its presence in the restaurant and customer service chatbot markets. It already serves automakers like Stellantis, restaurants like Chipotle, and credit card giants like Mastercard, and it should attract more customers who want to develop their own voice recognition services without sharing their data with larger tech companies.

From 2025 to 2027, analysts expect SoundHound’s revenue to grow at a 30% CAGR, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) turning positive in the final year. With an enterprise value of $4.5 billion, it might seem pricey at 20 times this year’s sales. However, its early mover’s advantage in the growing voice recognition services market should justify that higher valuation. Over the next decade, it should continue to expand and evolve as it acquires more companies and rolls out more agentic AI tools.

Lemonade

Lemonade sells homeowners, renters, term life, pet, and auto insurance policies. It’s popular with younger and first-time insurance customers because it simplifies the byzantine buying process with a streamlined AI-powered app.

Using AI chatbots instead of human representatives can quickly onboard new customers and process claims in a few seconds. From the end of 2020 to the third quarter of 2025, its customer base nearly tripled from 1.00 million to 2.87 million.

Lemonade Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(-0.97%) $-0.78

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Current Price

$79.41

From 2025 to 2027, analysts expect Lemonade’s revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of 44%, with adjusted EBITDA turning positive in the final year. The expansion of its newer pet and auto insurance businesses, its overseas growth (especially in Europe), and its rollout of more AI features should drive those gains.

With an enterprise value of $6.2 billion, Lemonade still looks reasonably valued at five times this year’s sales. However, it could command a much higher valuation if it scales up its business and pulls millions of customers away from traditional insurance companies.

CoreWeave

CoreWeave was once an Ethereum miner, but it abandoned that business model after the 2018 cryptocurrency crash. It subsequently repurposed its mining GPUs to remotely process machine learning and AI tasks, acquired more than 250,000 high-end data center GPUs from Nvidia, and expanded its business from three data centers at the end of 2022 to 33 data centers today.

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CoreWeave Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(6.55%) $6.22

Current Price

$101.23

CoreWeave claims its dedicated cloud-based GPUs can process AI tasks 35 times faster and 80% more cost-effectively than other cloud infrastructure platforms. Those strengths make it a popular choice for companies which don’t want to expand their own infrastructure to support their latest AI applications. As it locks in more AI customers — including Microsoft and OpenAI — analysts expect its revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of 95% and 109%, respectively, from 2025 to 2027.

CoreWeave is growing like a weed, yet it has an enterprise value of only $87.9 billion — which equates to 7x this year’s sales and 11x adjusted EBITDA. The high costs of opening new data centers are likely compressing its near-term valuations, but it could have plenty of room to grow over the long term as the cloud and AI markets expand.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ethereum, Lemonade, Mastercard, Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool recommends Stellantis and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft, short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft, and short March 2026 $42.50 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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XRP Drops Hard as Key Zone Breaks During Broad Crypto Sell-Off

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XRP Drops Hard as Key Zone Breaks During Broad Crypto Sell-Off
XRP slid sharply below key support as a broad crypto sell-off intensified, wiping out leveraged positions, driving extreme oversold signals, and exposing mounting macro and regulatory stress that continues to weigh on digital asset prices.
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Bitcoin Long Signal That Preceded 370% Move Is About To Go Off Again — What To Know

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Bitcoin Long Signal That Preceded 370% Move Is About To Go Off Again — What To Know

Going into the weekend, the price of Bitcoin was unable to sustain the bullish momentum it displayed earlier in the past week. Since Friday, January 16th, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, repudiated by the price resistance above, now trades in a tight consolidatory bracket. Interestingly, this period of silence has been deemed transient, as recent on-chain data suggests an exciting time ahead for the BTC price.

Kimchi Premium Flips Positive As Local Demand Sees Buildup 

In a January 17 post on the X platform, DeFi asset management platform XWIN Finance released an on-chain report, which suggests that Bitcoin might be closer to reaching a turning point than is apparent in its price action. 

This hypothesis is based on the Bitcoin Kimchi Premium indicator. This measures the percentage difference between a cryptocurrency’s price (in this case, Bitcoin) on South Korean exchanges and its price on global exchanges. Simply put, it shows how much more Korean traders are willing to pay for Bitcoin.

When the Kimchi Premium transitions steadily from low or negative levels to cross above historically significant levels, this is typically viewed as a long signal from the metric. This interpretation is because a rising Kimchi Premium reflects growing local demand in South Korea, usually often influenced by retail buyers.

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In essence, Korean buyers are willing to pay more for Bitcoin, hence overwhelming the available supply and consequently pushing prices upwards.

In the post on X, XWIN Finance highlighted that this long signal had been sighted on the indicator. History also attests to the bullish significance of this signal; there have been major price moves to the upside following sustained increases in the Kimchi Premium.

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An example is the last sighting of the long signal in October 2023, where the index rose above a major threshold, as shown in the chart above. The price of Bitcoin witnessed a 370% rally after this signal went off in 2023. 

According to XWIN Research, this same pattern seems to be playing out again in 2026. Hence, if the Kimchi Premium completes its long-signal formation, it could be a sign that buyers are occupying favourable positions for a bullish ride. 

If history does repeat itself, the Bitcoin price could be on track to witness another exciting voyage, with the flagship cryptocurrency possibly putting in a more than 300% surge in the next cycle. 

However, it is worth noting that macro conditions, institutional demand, and derivatives activity would be playing their roles to augment the pattern’s plausibility, as it should not be viewed as a standalone bullish sign.

Bitcoin Price At A Glance

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As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $95,280, reflecting no significant change in the past 24 hours.

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