UK Man Jailed 2.5 Years for SIM-Swap Crypto Theft of $265K

The sentence matters less as deterrence than as confirmation that SIM-swap cases are now being pursued through to conviction and asset tracing, not just reported as incidents. It underscores a structural weakness that phone-based two-factor authentication remains the softest link between a victim's identity and their crypto holdings, regardless of how robust the underlying chain is. The open question is whether exchanges and custodians treating SMS verification as acceptable will face pressure to move toward hardware keys or app-based authenticators.