Inside the Secret Bunkers Where the Rich Hide $10 Billion in Bitcoin

It may sound like something out of a James Bond movie, but the truth is often stranger than fiction.

Some of the richest people in the world are storing their Bitcoin in a network of secret and secure underground vaults around the globe.

The facilities are the definition of cold storage, and are purposefully and permanently disconnected from the internet and the outside world.

Quartz was granted a tour of one of the vaults, located at a decommissioned military bunker in the Swiss mountains.

The vaults are owned and operated by Xapo, which has spent years recruiting some of the richest people in the world to store their digital assets.

According to Bloomberg, retrieving Bitcoin from the vault takes about two days. Security measures are extreme. They include fingerprint scanners that are equipped with a pulse reader that prevents amputated hands from being used.

Xapo was created by entrepreneur Wences Casares. The Argentinian came up with the idea in 2014 and has worked ever since to convince millionaires and billionaires that he’s the man to store their crypto.