Bitcoin Forum

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I've almost to the point that it becomes tedious to send or receive coins, because I have to triple check everything. I've definitely made mistakes in the past with traditional fiat currencies, and Bitcoin. Unfortunately, with Bitcoin its very easy to misplace a decimal point, since you work with decimal points much more often than traditional currencies.

I've also lost wallets because of complacency. The thing is, we are all human, and therefore we all make the same mistakes. Software tries to prevent that by being as intuitive as possible. Although, because of the nature of Bitcoin, there's no safety net to rely on. Trusting a single point system of failure isn't the best idea. Hence why seeds are generated, and hopefully kept in a safe place, and potentially even duplicated to avoid issues of losing one of them.

The downside of being your own banker.

Check, recheck, verify, backup, repeat.

It is better if you can double and even triple check even when you are creating wallet and generating seed words.
Confirm if you wrote them correctly on paper and import them in empty wallet and after that you can use your wallet if backup worked correctly, and same is for every transaction or password.
We learn every day in crypto world.

Offline backup is really necessary, it is the best way to recover back backup information, it is also the safest from online attackers, that is why it is just the best. Also, many people like stringent ways to backup informations like seed phrase, private key and passwords, which supposed not to be too stringent. Some will even look for their own means of encryption. Stringent ways of backup can lead to loss of such information.

Lol

This is my life.

I just sent a transaction to a friend. I spend about 20 minutes checking, choosing the coins and addresses I would like to share triple check ledge nano, electrum, nano device, fees... so many things to check

It's easy to make a mistake, but at the same time it is amazing the freedom to send money over the internet without any custodial service or intermediaries

Depending on the format you choose to store your credentials it could still be considered unsafe. Since, if you store it offline, but digitally there's mechnical failure of the hard drive, or there's a damage risk etc. If you store the credentials on a piece of paper, that piece of paper might get lost, or damaged. No matter what format you choose, there will always be some sort of risk to it.

The best policy is looking to reduce those risks as much as possible, and having several safety ropes if things go south. Of course, this takes additional effort, so you rarely see people taking the extra precautions.

Absolutely, I wouldn't change a thing. The freedom that taking responsibility for your own money gives is fantastic. I tend to avoid third parties as much as possible, of course I do rely on some as I do believe we all do, but Bitcoin has really given a new perspective on life; that we don't always have to listen to these people telling us that we need them for a safety net.

Having your crypto storage and codes/words/backups in a safe is great.

Take the extra step and put them in a sealed plastic bag inside a fireproof bag inside that safe.

I'm just like you, my friends are so annoyed I keep on asking if the address is correct, I even ask for a screenshot of the address and check it per line, when I transfer. .04 BTC the last time it took me 15 mins checking it back and forth doesn't want to lose money by just because I'm overconfident but sometimes bad days really come, no matter how we are careful.

I have moved wallet from a device I intend to to use anymore to a device I would be using from that time, but my sensitive never told me to delete or wipe-off the wallet from the former device, I just turned of the battery and put it safely away, in my honest point of reasoning wiping wallet away from device even if you have upgraded to a new one is not necessary except you are want to give the device out, but if not Just move your wallet and keep the old one turned off and away safely, you can't tell when situation will require you going back for it.

This is one of the most common dangers in cryptography, yet it's one of the most often overlooked ones - locking yourself out of your own data. If you have some encrypted storage, you should regularly decrypt it to verify that you still can do it.

Every time I'm about to receive a sufficiently large transaction, I boot up my cold storage, open it, test my backups, verify that the addresses on the watch-only wallet match, and only then I proceed with incoming transaction.

Same here. I used to be a bit careless but aside from some too low fees I haven't done anything serious. Now when BTC became so valuable whenever I have to transact I go over and over through every transaction: the address, the fee, the amount to be sent and so on.

When it comes to passwords I don't have to make sure that I remember them because I had the same password for all my wallets in the last 5 years.

This is very costly and more frustrating because bitcoin reach a new ATH, the owner will surely not gonna forget his mistake, it's just sad that he will learn the hard way. Hopefully he will not hate bitcoin because of this, life must go on and he should stop blaming himself if he is doing it.

Maybe he should be positive, he helped to decrease the supply of bitcoin, lol..

He burned it.  ;D

This reminded me of this one story I believe from the United Kingdom, and I actually think it was Wales lost his hard drive by throwing it out, and it was worth 4 million several years ago. Today, it would be worth a lot more. I don't think he ever found the hard drive, and somewhere this hard drive exists, potentially still in a good enough state to rescue. The amount was something like 7500 Bitcoin, which is worth a lot of money these days.

Honestly, I don't know how they could have verified that this guy had that amount, and wasn't just looking for a limelight. However, it must be absolutely sickening looking at the price of Bitcoin today.

You can read about it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-25134289

That's why they said that "think twice before you click" because you can't undo once you already sent some btc into a wrong address.

Bitcoin is not that easy to earn so you must be careful in any actions or transactions you will do that involve this asset.

I'm sorry for you lost 2.6 BTC is a huge amount and it can be someone's whole finance so I encourage everyone to always double check before pressing send.

This case is not about TXs sent to the wrong address, but rather how the person in question encrypted his private key using a password generated by a password manager, but seemed to have neglected actually pressing the save button on the manager itself (unknowingly). He then ported his crypto to another computer, deleted the info from the old one, only to find that he could no longer decrypt the private keys due to not saving the password on the manager itself (no autosave feature inplace).

The guy claims to be tech-savy, but self-protocol/procedure setting is just as important, and he skipped a vital step before deleting the data on his old computer (possibly due to overconfidence).

I experienced a similar fate with in a non-trascendent situation: Setting up a pgp key, I used the password provided by my password manager. I often multitask whatever I do, and I may have inadvertently used the clipboard whilst the password still there. As a result, when I returned to my pgp key creation, I pasted what I thought was the password generated on the password manager, but likely pasted something else (due to using the clipboard in between).

Like the case depicted in the OP, I know my share of technology, but procedure, or overconfidencent multi-tasking led to a mistake that has no consequence in my particular case, but led to a 2,6 BTC loss in the case depicted here.

Absolutely correct! I store my seed phrases offline on my “sacred” notebook. I learn my lesson the hard way when I took screenshots of seed phrases of empty wallets and never backed them up offline. Then one day, my phone got damaged and had no choice but to factory reset after visiting a lot of technicians. I just realized that I have enabled Google Photos which all of my pictures from the past are saved. Imagine if I didn’t have Google Photos! I would freak out!

I know how it feels to lose an amount like that. If I were in his shoes, it would be hard for me to move on. Lessons learned.

I keep my passwords in my head, my bitcoin password I don't think I'll ever forget, it's also extremely long. I have no unencrypted backup for bitcoin.

I'm also holding an another crypto worth about $10k in total. A few days ago I realized I don't remember the password! But then I remembered it. I haven't had to use that password in over a year.

So for a little while I though that poof! It could all have been gone. Although I do have my biggest private key for that alt saved separately and safely (no one can find it), so I'd probably recover 90+% of it.

If you memorize something deeply enough, forgetting it will be as impossible as forgetting your name. You'd have to live multiple lifetimes or get severe brain damage. Of course if you die and you haven't taken steps to make your crypto inheritable all that happens is your hands are the strongest of all, and you will not sell at any price.

If you don't believe me on that, just try it yourself. Get a long alphanumeric string, break it up into chunks (4, 5 or 6 characters each) than practice memorizing it until it's in your head.

Eventually you can destroy the original and as long as you revisit it regularly eventually you'll never forget it.

Although password managers are probably a better idea.



There's probably not way to find it now, and you'd really be risking your life going into a landfill, If I could sneak in I'd probably be searching for it right now. It's probably buried under feet of trash that has congealed into some sort of mass. It's gone now. If the guy could provide his BTC address and the coins haven't moved we can assume he's not lying and count his coins as gone forever.

I am not an expert on such information, but are there no programs that allow data recovery from a formatted disk? Surely some specialists are ready to take on such work for some kind of remuneration.
In any case, as they say, the "law of meanness" worked
The "cherry on the cake" was the moment of entering the password, which was not there. I think that many of us have encountered similar situations. Trusting a password manager, or an encrypted flash drive that is almost impossible to recover, especially if some program like TrueCrypt is involved in encryption, is always somewhat dangerous.
Unfortunately, the Christmas present turned out to be too expensive, and all that remains is to express our sympathy to the victim.

That is very true and most important thing for bitcoiners. Being your own bank is not that easy as it sounds since a simple mistake can vanish all your life savings.
The ability to control your own money comes with it's disadvantages which people quite often forget and end up cursing bitcoin for not being able to secure it appropriately.

Well, sorry for your loss it's not really your fault we can see the effort you put in keeping your bitcoin safe, and then just because of the password manager, you lost your bitcoin.

I think it's better if we have something like a file like what he did and also the drives where he put the other seed, I'm surprised he didn't put his password there with his private key. The password manager could be hack or whatsoever I mean it's really tempting especially if they know the bitcoin market today.

Also has at least 1 copy of it in a notebook just for an emergency, especially for passwords it's true that it might burn because of fire but it's the only copy that cannot be a hack or corrupted like a drive.

I mostly solved it by having a more easily accessible 'hot wallet' for smaller transactions. Receiving is less inconvenient with watch-only wallets. Although striving to have maintain as much privacy as possible makes everything more inconvenient.


Personally, I don't find it to be a difficulty, but I'm extra careful when dealing with different units, e.g. BTC and mBTC, etc.


Probably not in this case according to what he claims to have been told by the company which released the password manager:

Data recovery becomes more difficult as time goes on. The most the device is used, the more unlikely it is to rescue. Most data recovery software is very basic, and will only rescue very recently deleted data, and even then it might be too fragmented to actually recover. Plus, data recovery is very expensive, and most charge on a hourly rate no matter if they find what you are looking for so it can become quite an expensive service.

I agree that its not difficult, but its something that can often be rushed. So, I do believe its more likely to happen with Bitcoin compared to traditional fiat currencies. Most software tends to show you the amount you are sending as a prompt so software is your sort of safety net in this scenario.

It's just that Bitcoin is fundamentally easier to mess up, since addresses are rather large, and that's another point where people can trip over. I'm not saying that Bitcoin is worse either, I love being in control of your money, I can't believe we live in a world where people trust another person to hold their money, and even worse pretty much gamble with it.

Very sad indeed and expensive lost. It is why it's also important to take backups through written words including passwords. It may be time consuming to double check all steps that you do for transferring your bitcoins into another machine, wallet or exchange, you don't compromise your funds with that reasoning.
When I do some transfers, I'm not only double checking it but doing it more than that, several times. It is to make sure that I'm sending to the right address, with the right amount, just for the sake of assurance before sending.

an extremely painful misfortune.  around $100k more just goes away through carelessness, I am the type of person who will never be trivial by the slightest thing, storing passwords and private keys is very, very important to me.  surely that person will experience great regret until the end of his life because of a small mistake.

Before I created a crypto wallet account, I always put the information of it on a piece of paper, I am a person who doesn't have good memorization so I always prepare a piece of paper in terms of that thing. Double-checking is important because that is the hard thing in decentralization, no one is responsible for your own money, you are the only one who will handle and control your own money. Always be responsible for that thing especially when talking about money.

Another tech savvy man scam for millions if you are interested: https://www.coindesk.com/ceo-of-defi-insurer-nexus-mutual-hacked-for-8m-in-nxm-tokens

The more you know the more sophisticated attacks for you.