Critics warn that New York City’s searchable real estate database puts wealthy residents at risk

Searchable Database This data, generated from public property assessment records in New York City, has sparked backlash from prominent figures in the cryptocurrency industry, who argue that effectively facilitating information searches creates evidence for wealthy property owners and could put them in physical danger.

The controversy centers on data published by the New York City Department of Finance, which annually publishes the estimated values ​​used to calculate property taxes for every property in the city. The agency’s FY 2027 assessment roll, supplemental market value data, and property tax guides are available to the public through the city’s open data portal.

Critics of

Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, called it “the worst crowdsourced data gathering I’ve ever seen,” saying the database listed almost every unit in some luxury apartment buildings, including the primary residences of people he knew. He said the project casts too wide a net and called it “incredibly dangerous.”

“Not only were their units listed, but almost every unit in the entire building was listed,” Adams said books. “They clearly took an incredibly expansive view of ‘could have’ and put together a large percentage of all the expensive apartments in New York City.”

Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helios, called the database “troubling” and said it went too far by turning scattered public records into a central resource that effectively singles out wealthy individuals.

“While this data had been largely public before in a chaotic way, they cleaned it up, organized it, targeted the ‘rich’, and distributed it widely, which is just the 50th sign this year that privacy continues to be scarce.” books.

An easily searchable database of wealthy property owners could make potential victims easier to identify, Castle Island Ventures partner Nick Carter warned, pointing to recent kidnappings and violent attacks related to cryptocurrencies in Europe.

“So, here’s a list of wealthy people and their addresses. And as we’ve seen in France and Sweden, this leads to kidnappings, torture and murders with cryptocurrencies,” Carter said. books On X. “Yes, real estate records are semi-public but this is an easily searchable database and target list.”

Criticism comes physically orpainAttacks targeting cryptocurrency holders continue to rise, with incidents including kidnapping and torture Home invasionsand Sexual assaults.

In February, blockchain security firm CertiK I mentioned There were 72 verified “major attacks” on cryptocurrencies worldwide in 2025, a 75% increase from the previous year and resulting in losses of more than $40.9 million.

In April, French authorities charged 88 suspectsincluding more than 10 minors, in a comprehensive crackdown on violent cryptocurrency kidnappings. In May, US prosecutors accused Three men are accused of carrying out a series of armed home invasions across California that allegedly stole millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. In June, two brothers from Texas pleaded sinner To kidnap a family from Minnesota and force the victims to transfer more than $8 million in cryptocurrencies.

By July, CertiK said attackers had already carried out 52 verified “major attacks” in the cryptocurrency space in the first half of 2026, with recorded financial exposure rising nearly twelve-fold year-on-year to $124 million.