Brink partners with Metaco to prevent cryptocurrency theft, hackers

The security company best known for making giant armored trucks and inspiring sophisticated heists for bored suburban kids is getting into cryptocurrencies.

Brink, 163-year-old Virginia-on the basis of a security company announced it has partnered with Swiss cryptocurrency custodian company Metaco to provide physical “disaster recovery” solutions for cryptocurrency private key backups. In the case of one ofIn the event of a doomsday disaster, Brink’s will keep a physical backup of the crypto client’s keys in one of its secure vaults.

In a statement, Brinks senior commercial director Oliver Buckle-Wright said they are working to provide a “secure offline service” to protect the assets of Metaco customers. These physical backups will be in the form of certified “smart cards,” Seamus Donoghue, vice president of strategic alliances at Metaco, said. interview with CoinDesk.

“Brink’s has storage locations around the world and their specialty is secure logistics, handling banknotes for all major financial institutions, precious metals, and storing these precious materials on behalf of the institutions,” Donoghue told CoinDesk. “Therefore, it is only natural that a physical backup of private keys be stored in a distributed manner across multiple Brink’s vaults.”

Brink’s extra layer of security couldn’t have come sooner for the crypto industry. Although cryptocurrencies have been introduced, in part As a much more secure digital alternative to transferring funds, cryptocurrency-related theft has skyrocketed in recent years. According to the latest data, in 2021 report by firm Chainalysis, cryptocurrency-related crimes hit an all-time high of $14 billion. This is nearly double the $7.8 billion in crypto crimes the firm reported in 2020. This rise in crime has come in tandem with the huge rise in cryptocurrency transactions. Total cryptocurrency transaction volume reportedly rose to a staggering $15.8 trillion last year, up 567% from a year earlier.

While the overall share of stolen cryptocurrencies remains low, the author of the report warned that continued theft could threaten newcomer adoption.

“The criminal misuse of cryptocurrencies creates huge obstacles to its further adoption, increases the likelihood of government restrictions and, worst of all, persecutes innocent people around the world,” the author of the report writes.

These overall figures are borne out by a surge in high-profile thefts in recent months. Earlier this year the hackers reportedly escaped with $625 million worth of cryptocurrencies from the Ronin blockchain in what is believed to be the biggest cryptocurrency theft in history. A few months earlier, the Crypo.com trading platform admitted hackers stole about $34 million worth of cryptocurrencies from their platform.