Police in the Netherlands are investigating the brutal torture of a bitcoin trader, whose home was raided by criminals looking for cryptocurrency.

Three robbers disguised as police entered the victim's home in Drenthe and attacked him with a drill in front of his four-year-old daughter, Dutch publication De Telegraaf reported.

The hour-long ordeal also involved the victim being threatened with firearms, before the perpetrators fled in an escape vehicle. The digital nature of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies mean long and complex passwords – or private keys – are required to access assets and transfer them to another digital wallet.

Police did not reveal the identity of the victim but it is not believed any cryptocurrency was stolen during the raid.

A spokesperson for Northern Netherlands Police told The Independent that the investigation is ongoing.

Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Satoshi Nakamoto creates the first bitcoin block in 2009 On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin is used as a currency for the first time On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins – the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices Lazlo Hanyecz Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Silk Road opens for business Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The first bitcoin ATM appears On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The fall of MtGox The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Would the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's big split On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash REUTERS Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's price sky rockets Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year Reuters

It is not the first time criminals have targeted cryptocurrency investors and traders, with the earliest reported instance taking place in 2015.

In February of that year, New York City firefighter Dwayne Richards was stabbed in Willamsburg, Brooklyn, by muggers who demanded he transferred bitcoin to their digital wallets.

Bitcoin, which is currently worth around $3,800 (£2,800), is semi-anonymous and therefore difficult to trace to a single individual.

Since its peak in late 2017, bitcoin has lost close to three quarters of its value, yet still remains an attractive prospect for criminals.

Criminals are targeting bitcoin traders in an effort to extort cryptocurrency (Getty Images)

In one of the most notable examples of criminals targeting holders of bitcoin, kidnappers in the Ukraine made more than $1 million in digital currency in 2017 after ransoming cryptocurrency analyst Pavel Lerner.

The UK's first bitcoin heist took place in January last year, when armed robbers broke into the home of cryptocurrency trader Danny Aston in Moulsford, South Oxfordshire.