People Losing Passwords & Wallets...

[serjent05]

It has come to my attention, that people are starting to lose their passwords/wallets/access to bitcoin more and more often. They are either idiots or careless or just naive, but this really needs to stop.

Just today I see at least 5 reports of people losing their wallets, frequently in the wallet subforum but also on reddit. Of course economically speaking this is good for the rest of us, because the money velocity slows down making our coins more valuable, but it also makes newbie integration very unfriendly.

Really if we want bitcoin to be global, we need to make newbies more comfortable with bitcoin. Many people are irresponsible, so we need to warn them of the consequences, because they never read the fine print.


My suggestion:

1) Everyone should write tutorials for newbies and give them out for free for newbies, that will teach them how to start out in bitcoin, and what risks they need to consider. Highlighting important topics like backing up wallets, and passwords, and also keeping their systems safe from malware.

2) Every wallet software should integrate a warning window warning users to backup their wallets and passwords before creating the wallet. The warning should be in big red letters , so that newbies can see it, and this might make them realize that it is important for example:

WARNING!! BACKUP YOUR WALLET/SEED/PASSWORD OTHERWISE YOU COULD LOSE ACCESS TO YOUR BITCOINS

3) A pinned thread on the Beginners & Help section warning users to backup their wallets & passwords

4) Bitcoin.org and wallet websites should also tell newbies to backup their stuff.







Consequences:

If we don't make bitcoiners more responsible, then they will demand the existance of "bitcoin banks" that will store their bitcoins for them "safely".

If the newbies cannot be responsible, then they will hand over the control over their coins to middleman, centralized wallets, and we will accomplish nothing.

Bitcoin banks will be born,and the same fractional reserve shit will start over again. So it is in our interest to make people responsible, to keep bitcoin decentralized.

People are too lazy! There are already enough warning and guidelines on how to secure the wallet.  People are just to confident on their computer securities and neve think that crashes may happen anytime.   During the creation of wallet there is enough reminder about the securities and private key that they have to secure.

[~Bitcoin~]

These days wallets have provided increased security features, so to retain their wallet even when password were lost. Possibly every small portion lost got lost from wallets have added a big volume under the lost list, which have some impact on the circulation.

That's why it is suggested to import private key of every bitcoin address you have in your online wallet. Blockchain.info atleast provide this feature, if you hold private key of bitcoin address you use with your wallet than even when that online wallet go down you can easily spend your bitcoin adding that address to wallet provider like electrum.

[Joel_Jantsen]

These days wallets have provided increased security features, so to retain their wallet even when password were lost. Possibly every small portion lost got lost from wallets have added a big volume under the lost list, which have some impact on the circulation.

That's why it is suggested to import private key of every bitcoin address you have in your online wallet. Blockchain.info atleast provide this feature, if you hold private key of bitcoin address you use with your wallet than even when that online wallet go down you can easily spend your bitcoin adding that address to wallet provider like electrum.

There are better chances that blockchain.info/hackers could import the same private keys in their wallets.How hard is it to leak the passwords anyway they have been Ddos'd like a 10 times before.It never safer to trust online wallets with your private keys or bitcoins.

[bestluck]

if you have lose your bitcoin account password then you can easily recover it from using your email. but if yo lost your wallet password then it is little difficult to recover it. i think you must be careful about your bitcoin as well as your wallet accounts address.

You are right, when I was going to sign up to the blockchain.info, I was advised that if I lost my wallet password then I will lose access to my coins, I think blockchain.info wallet password is unable to recover.

[RealBitcoin]

Everyone should write tutorials for newbies

Bad idea! Tutorials are available already, and most Bitcoin users don't have enough understanding of the concept to be able to write tutorials.
Showing tutorials on the other hand is a good idea, but if people are spending money on things they don't understand, it's just a life lesson to them if they lose money.

Yea I corrected it, only experienced people should write them, the least thing we need is misleading or wrong info.

[CryptoBjorn]

if you have lose your bitcoin account password then you can easily recover it from using your email. but if yo lost your wallet password then it is little difficult to recover it. i think you must be careful about your bitcoin as well as your wallet accounts address.

You are right, when I was going to sign up to the blockchain.info, I was advised that if I lost my wallet password then I will lose access to my coins, I think blockchain.info wallet password is unable to recover.

It is, so you should make sure to follow their instruction. if you got 2FA their support sometimes feel the need to help you more.
But still you are dealing with money, so it's your first responsibility to make sure you protect your money first.

[vlight]

People are too lazy! There are already enough warning and guidelines on how to secure the wallet.  People are just to confident on their computer securities and neve think that crashes may happen anytime.   During the creation of wallet there is enough reminder about the securities and private key that they have to secure.

This. People will just not learn and will get burned.

[RealBitcoin]

When i was brand new to bitcoin, circa 2011-12, I had my bitcoins on a flash drive. Needless to say i put it through the washer. I was devastated. I came back though, and now make sure that i evenly distribute amongst a few separate wallets. These days though, I've been moving to fiat currency and I'm financing a new boat engine..

Sorry for your loss, but yes wallets have become better and better and now offer recovery seeds. Still not enough to prepare the majority of users though.

So a more visual warning would be required.

I would assume most of them are just ew to the system and others can be just too naive like you said. They want a word printed in red and gigantic size that says "Do no share your personal information to anyone. Do not lose your passpharse. Provide more ways to ensure more security to your account. Use Two-Factor Authentication." Some people say they'll do it later but its best to do it now before its too late.

I`m sorry that we have to dumb down bitcoin to the level of 5 year olds, but that is just how the mainstream people are.

Mainstream adults have literally the mentality of 5 year olds, so if bitcoin were to go mainstream, that also implies that we will get tons of dumb people using something they dont understand.

Well the first question is, did they really lose their wallet? Did they really forgot their password or someone hacked their account.. Because for sure, if they have bitcoins in that wallet, they will find ways not to forgot their account since it is their hard earned money that is in their account. But it should serves as a lesson to each and everyone of us. We should do our best to make our bitcoin wallet secured.

They pretty much do, wallet recovery services are only 33% effective, and most mainstream users dont have enough funds to be worth to recover the password from scraps.

Those below the treshhold are in a bad position, but at least they lose small amounts, hopefully less and less as they learn more in the future.

People are too lazy! There are already enough warning and guidelines on how to secure the wallet.  People are just to confident on their computer securities and neve think that crashes may happen anytime.   During the creation of wallet there is enough reminder about the securities and private key that they have to secure.

Not enough, the wiki page i doubt is read by many newbies.

The simple solution is wallet based tutorials, or a help page in every wallet software, and a warning before creating wallets to do the proper procedures of securing it.

Not all wallets remind people, or the reminder is not visual enough.

Remember the average mainstreamer has an IQ of 90, which is slightly  more than of a chimpanzee, so you have to dumb it down like if you were talking to a toddler.

[zodin]

yes people loses their wallet password and some time wallets keys. i think that are not good for them. and they have to be careful. ye s not doubt that still people may not be able to use your wallet account haing wallet but still  it is not so safe.

[raphma]

I always put the things that i cannot lose in a protected file on my computer, and a printed version of it in a secure suitcase.

Do you carry it around wearing sunglasses? That is the real question.

LOL
you are the MVP.

[CrazyCraig]

These days wallets have provided increased security features, so to retain their wallet even when password were lost. Possibly every small portion lost got lost from wallets have added a big volume under the lost list, which have some impact on the circulation.

That's why it is suggested to import private key of every bitcoin address you have in your online wallet. Blockchain.info atleast provide this feature, if you hold private key of bitcoin address you use with your wallet than even when that online wallet go down you can easily spend your bitcoin adding that address to wallet provider like electrum.

There are better chances that blockchain.info/hackers could import the same private keys in their wallets.How hard is it to leak the passwords anyway they have been Ddos'd like a 10 times before.It never safer to trust online wallets with your private keys or bitcoins.

a ddos has no correlation to insecurities of a service. Its meant to impede services and cause interruptions.

[erikalui]

It's really carelessness and silly to not remember the passwords or store it somewhere to recover the account. Also, blockchain needs to let users access their account in another way (like providing some kind of proof like FB does) in case one forgets his/her password else now it's almost impossible to recover coins from a wallet without a password. Coinbase/Xapo do not provide private keys but still there are ways to recover your account. It's also necessary that these users have their private key store in a physical form to be on the safe side.

[calkob]

the problem is not with people losing bitcoin passwords the problem is that bitcoin is not that noob friendly, as a community we need to find more user friendly ways of using bitcoin, like seriously, addresses and privatekeys need to dissapper into the background, before bitcoin will ever go main stream.

[CrazyCraig]

the problem is not with people losing bitcoin passwords the problem is that bitcoin is not that noob friendly, as a community we need to find more user friendly ways of using bitcoin, like seriously, addresses and privatekeys need to dissapper into the background, before bitcoin will ever go main stream.

We need something called a floating address, or 'vanity address' Something that a user can remember, but ultimately is tied to several addresses. Coinbase is trying to implement something based on emails, however it is not recognized network wide.

[RealBitcoin]

the problem is not with people losing bitcoin passwords the problem is that bitcoin is not that noob friendly, as a community we need to find more user friendly ways of using bitcoin, like seriously, addresses and privatekeys need to dissapper into the background, before bitcoin will ever go main stream.

What are you talking about, people are losing their wallet files not their priv keys.

You need to remember a password and keep a backup of the wallet file, you dont need to memorize a private key (although that would be optimal)

[RealBitcoin]

Just look at the latest examples of people losing access to their coins:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1562979.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1547068.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1554373.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1562706.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1524197.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1556554.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1560387.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1557122.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1543878.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1550808.0

And the list goes on....


So don't cry to me that bitcoin will become centralized, when all these people will use 3RD party banks to store their bitcoins...

[Ulloa]

the problem is not with people losing bitcoin passwords the problem is that bitcoin is not that noob friendly, as a community we need to find more user friendly ways of using bitcoin, like seriously, addresses and privatekeys need to dissapper into the background, before bitcoin will ever go main stream.

There are many problems. For 1 we need people to use a hard passphrase.
And also people should protect their pc or mac better, so trojan or wallet stealers can't be executed.

[Hirose UK]

people have been losing their passwords for as long as passwords exist, and it is neither limited to bitcoin nor limited to internet.

why do you think most of the people use passwords like "123", "abcd", or their brithdays? because they lose/forget their passwords all the time. whether it is the password to open their physical lock or it is for their bitcoin wallet.

creating tutorials never change anything in this case.

yeah. the problem is on the person who has the password. if they really care about his/her wallet, he/she will keep their password safe. so our job is to warn them.

I agree with OP's suggestion to make a warning thread on newbie section.

[ranochigo]

These days wallets have provided increased security features, so to retain their wallet even when password were lost. Possibly every small portion lost got lost from wallets have added a big volume under the lost list, which have some impact on the circulation.

That's why it is suggested to import private key of every bitcoin address you have in your online wallet. Blockchain.info atleast provide this feature, if you hold private key of bitcoin address you use with your wallet than even when that online wallet go down you can easily spend your bitcoin adding that address to wallet provider like electrum.

There are better chances that blockchain.info/hackers could import the same private keys in their wallets.How hard is it to leak the passwords anyway they have been Ddos'd like a 10 times before.It never safer to trust online wallets with your private keys or bitcoins.

a ddos has no correlation to insecurities of a service. Its meant to impede services and cause interruptions.

Correct. It is only a sign that they cannot handle excessive loads well enough. However, there were several security lapse due to their incompetence.

Please, never import any private keys into online wallets. Online wallets are generally unsafe since they are "online". Even though the older version of Blockchain.info wallet stores the private keys encrypted on their server, it is still dangerous since the password can be weak. Just write the key down somewhere if you want to be safe.

[SmartIphone]

Another issue that I see to bitcoin users are that they do not make regular backups.
If you haven't done the latest backup then you can lose all the money if the funds have been moved to another address on that wallet.

why you should need to do regular backups? i mean if your money just sits in one wallet theres no need to backup the same private key over and over again

Some bitcoin wallet need to regulrarly make backups because when you make a transaction from A to B you can see that was made also to C (which is a new address in your wallet). Not doing regularly backups can be fatal.