The “An unfortunate boating accident” excuse has been used to hide assets, often from the government or the “tax man”.
The story goes that the origin of the expression was a bag of guns and a police badge that was found at low water levels. The officer was said to have declared that he lost the guns in a boating accident and this excuse soon was copied by citizens to hide assets from the government.
Another origin story has also to do with guns, as in people trying to hide them (for example when the UK banned them). As guns were used by hunters and on boats, it was a plausible explanation and hard to argue against and nearly impossible to prove incorrect.
As crypto is nowadays kept on hardware wallets (well, actually the private keys, the crypto assets themselves never leave the blockchain), it is just as easy to claim you lost your ledger in an unfortunate boating accident.
This implies that you could have lost an unlimited amount of funds and therefore shouldn’t have to pay taxes on them. It is often used as an inside joke between influencers and other whales. IYKYK.
See also $5 wrench attack.
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