Beirut explosion - Lesson to learn from this.

[pixie85]

I wouldn't overreact if I were you.

If you live in a small town and somewhere in an area not known for natural disasters the chance of something happening to you and your wallet are very small.

If there's an explosion like that next to my house I won't need my bitcoins anymore.

[adzino]

Yeah, maybe you shouldn't store all your bitcoin in one single place, but the explosion that happened was a rare case. We don't see everyday areas blowing up, houses getting destroyed or everything wiping out. But, I get what you want to say. Why take the chances? But, wouldn't it be harder to keep track of all your coins if you store it in different places.
And if my house blew up and people died, I wouldn't care about my bitcoins. I would be more concerned about the people who got hurt.

[Kakmakr]

I wouldn't overreact if I were you.

If you live in a small town and somewhere in an area not known for natural disasters the chance of something happening to you and your wallet are very small.

If there's an explosion like that next to my house I won't need my bitcoins anymore.

What if you are at work and not at home when it happens? You will return to a home that would be flattened to the ground and all your possessions destroyed. (TV / Fridge / Beds / Clothing / Jewelry and personal items)

A lot of people do not even have insurance, so they will need to use those bitcoins to buy back some of those thing. You cannot say that natural disasters will not happen, if you live in a area that are not prone to natural disasters. Floods & Fires can happen very quickly and both can destroy your house and everything in it. (My neighbors house burnt down to the ground in a matter of minutes)

Just prepare for the worst and if it does happen... then your hard work will not have been for nothing. 

[ChiBitCTy]

People can quickly become complacent to think that their single location storage of their Bitcoin hoard would be enough. We all saw how 300 000 people have lost their houses in as little as a few seconds.

The Beirut explosion should be a wake-up call to all of us, to store your Paper wallets and cold wallets in more than one geographical location. A national disaster or a accident like this might wipe out your house and if you used that as your primary hiding place, you would lose more than your house.

After a disaster like this, bulldozers are brought in and only the foundations might be left after they are done. (So hiding it in a safe or a wall or the roof is a bad idea.)

Make sure you have several copies of your Paper wallets/Private keys and store them in separate locations. You might not even be at home when a disaster like this happens and when you return, the authorities might stop you from entering the devastated area. (due to instability of structures or chemical/gas leaks.) So you will not have a opportunity to retrieve your stash. 

Wake up and act now... before it is too late. 

These are good points in general for sure.  It's also a good and very sad reminder that we are all not immortal.  We are all going to die someday so make sure you've got a Will established with precise directions on how to pass along your bitcoin/cryptocurrency to your heirs. You never know when tragedy might strike. 

[sunsilk]

Not applicable for holders who don't have another place to store it. It's a good idea and wake-up call as you analyze what happened but it's not just everyone have the other place to store their private keys or can ask someone to do that.

You can reinvent or think of it how you can quickly bring it if some disaster comes. We have our natural instinct how we will protect ourselves and as well as our assets that's in the safety box or any storage you have placed your private keys, paper wallets, etc.

[DoublerHunter]

~snip~
Just prepare for the worst and if it does happen... then your hard work will not have been for nothing. 

^ Definitely right, no one can definitely predict what will happen and the worst disaster like what happened in Lebanon was unexpected.
Probably it is good if you have a metal vault locker at home and instead of paper wallets, just put it into metal, engraved metal as your paper wallet will probably a safe place for any disaster will come, it should not be burned and wet. Nevertheless, there is no really safe place, that is luck and your fate.

[Quidat]

As an aside, I can't believe there were only around 100 casualties in that blast.  It looked like it would have killed a lot more people than that, though I don't know how dense the population was in that particular area at the time.  Scary stuff.

Numbers are still growing and same as yours i dont really believe that it do only killed 100 but basing of on wounded which is nearly 6000 and still counting.When i saw some feed in facebook on such explosion
i though it was just an another movie or some sort but actually its real which i cant believe to happen in times like these(pandemic situation).
Going back into topic about storage of your keys via HW,Paper or other ways then its really hard to recover this up once you lost these things in possession.It might not really be ideal
to store up your PK's in cloud but i actually save up some pk in my email but in a scattered manner so no one will able to know if someone do have access on it but to think
it would be hard to bypass unless google itself will fucked you up.

[Shasha80]

I feel sorry for what happened in Beirut, of course this is a valuable lesson for us all. Storing valuables in one location is
bad idea and very risky. If there is a big explosion like the one in Beirut we don't do much. Therefore if we are have paper
money, important document and private keys stored in several places, at least if it happens it will not lose everything.

[DarkDays]

I really think people have more to worry about than simply lose their cryptocurrency if they get caught up in an explosion of this scale.

I don't get the need to draw parallels between every trending topic and Bitcoin....

[AmoreJaz]

I really think people have more to worry about than simply lose their cryptocurrency if they get caught up in an explosion of this scale.

I don't get the need to draw parallels between every trending topic and Bitcoin....

but if you have lots of BTCs in your wallet, i guess you will be worried also. but in any case, the first thing that you will worry about this situation is, if your family is safe and alive. then all the other things, can come secondary. because as long as you are alive, you have the chance to recover all those material things that you possess.
 these trending topics are somehow making this forum relevant to the outside world. so sometimes these people will just connect crypto life to whatever is happening in our environment. if nothing else, just to have discussions here and who knows, such topics like this will really be helpful to others out there?

[Serious475]

People can quickly become complacent to think that their single location storage of their Bitcoin hoard would be enough. We all saw how 300 000 people have lost their houses in as little as a few seconds.

The Beirut explosion should be a wake-up call to all of us, to store your Paper wallets and cold wallets in more than one geographical location. A national disaster or a accident like this might wipe out your house and if you used that as your primary hiding place, you would lose more than your house.

After a disaster like this, bulldozers are brought in and only the foundations might be left after they are done. (So hiding it in a safe or a wall or the roof is a bad idea.)

Make sure you have several copies of your Paper wallets/Private keys and store them in separate locations. You might not even be at home when a disaster like this happens and when you return, the authorities might stop you from entering the devastated area. (due to instability of structures or chemical/gas leaks.) So you will not have a opportunity to retrieve your stash. 

Wake up and act now... before it is too late. 

Since bitcoin has a lot of users now, if everyone of us donates our one day income to that incident we can help them to recover easily. If an activity like this happens, Bitcoin will be having a big reputation on that country and might end up making Bitcoin a legalized coin on their country. It will also help the Bitcoin to occur the mass adaptation that all of us is waiting for. We can also help our co-users from that country because they are also helping us to have a good value of Bitcoin.

[bonjouros]

Yeah, I definitely agree with you as we will not know when it will happen to our place as everything can happen in an instant therefore being prepared is the best action to do.

It will be best if we can store our private keys in different locations but still safe locations so we can always access our wallet if there are happenings like this in our area.
Especially if we are storing a huge amount of money in our bitcoin wallets or crypto wallet as losing our private keys is like losing that money also.

[mk4]

I really think people have more to worry about than simply lose their cryptocurrency if they get caught up in an explosion of this scale.

I don't get the need to draw parallels between every trending topic and Bitcoin....

It could happen where your home was caught up in an explosion/fire while you're somewhere else unaffected, and you lose access to your funds if your only backups are in your home alone.

While yes, the explosion sure doesn't have anything related to Bitcoin, OP sure has a point.

[cheezcarls]

People can quickly become complacent to think that their single location storage of their Bitcoin hoard would be enough. We all saw how 300 000 people have lost their houses in as little as a few seconds.

The Beirut explosion should be a wake-up call to all of us, to store your Paper wallets and cold wallets in more than one geographical location. A national disaster or a accident like this might wipe out your house and if you used that as your primary hiding place, you would lose more than your house.

After a disaster like this, bulldozers are brought in and only the foundations might be left after they are done. (So hiding it in a safe or a wall or the roof is a bad idea.)

Make sure you have several copies of your Paper wallets/Private keys and store them in separate locations. You might not even be at home when a disaster like this happens and when you return, the authorities might stop you from entering the devastated area. (due to instability of structures or chemical/gas leaks.) So you will not have a opportunity to retrieve your stash.  

Wake up and act now... before it is too late.  

I was thinking the same thing. I watched that footage from various angles and it was horrifying. Imagine if I were the one recorded that video, I would have instantly suffered severe anxiety and panic attack while running away for life.

Which is why having them stored in one place isn't ideal. I have a notebook where I stored all of my private keys, mnemonic phrases, and other details, etc., but it seems that I need to store them in more than one source (I did store some in my Google Drive and USB drive just in case).

[AniviaBtc]

In my opinion, one of the safest, easiest, cheapest, solid DIY method to store in different locations is almost free, but people will probably not like it because it not that cool. The best things tend to be free and widely available but look too ordinary/common... so people go for the cool, complicated, hard-to-make, not-so-secure ones, and they really trust and like them.

Also that can make them uncomfortable to think that their assets are in a different places where they can't handle it safely. Although it is safe, but still the anxiousness that can strike whenever you think that your paper wallets are not store by your side. It is really a wrong decision to store it in your house. But still, people have their own will on where they will store their money. This is a good example on why you should not be confident on storing your paper wallets, tragedies are unavoidable because it can hit or strike you whenever it comes. Tragedies are unpredictable so it is much safer for you to store your coins on the place that you are confident or guaranteed about.

[bayu7adi]

this is a good and sad warning to us.  in a disaster, something can be snatched away suddenly ... our wallets are important, but there is something even more important to safeguard, namely ourselves and all our loved ones ... we can still raise more money, but there won't be any  which can replace our love for someone

lets pray for our brothers and sisters affected by the incident

[Lakai01]

It's always a trade off between the risk of losing access yourself, and someone else gaining access. I've never found a solution that fully satisfies me.

Have you ever considered purchasing several hardware wallets (e.g. a Ledger S), initializing them with the same seed and storing them in different places (parents, a bank safe deposit box, ...)?

I would have no problem if the ledger should fall into the hands of someone else, I think it is impossible to guess the pin. Furthermore, to my knowledge there is technically no possibility to get the seed out of the ledger in that case. I am currently considering a similar scenario, whereby I currently like the storage of a backup ledger in a safe deposit box best. 

[tbct_mt2]

The Beirut explosion should be a wake-up call to all of us, to store your Paper wallets and cold wallets in more than one geographical location. A national disaster or a accident like this might wipe out your house and if you used that as your primary hiding place, you would lose more than your house.

It is a precious lesson for all. From HSE (Heath Safety Environment) staffs to bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts.

Don't delay important and vital things for too long. Don't blame on anyone else because of any level of delays like the director of the Beirut sea port.

For bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts, having multiple backups in multiple formats (paper, USB, steel, ...) and in different geolocations like you advised.

Furthermore, share the backups and ways to retrieve coins from backups to at least one person who you love and trust the most is key. Accidents (maybe death) can happen to everyone so don't keep all things for yourself alone, then if something bad happens, your coins will be lost forever.

[Yudhisthir]

You should check for you anxiety if these events triggers your fear. Larger and smaller calamities takes place frequently around the world. You just need to be a bit concerned about the security of your coins but the security issue should not haunt your life. What's the use of your coins if you lost your own life and maybe the life of your loved ones.

[stompix]

The blast, as I saw on FB was a devastation of the kind of Hiroshima.

As an aside, I can't believe there were only around 100 casualties in that blast.  It looked like it would have killed a lot more people than that, though I don't know how dense the population was in that particular area at the time.  Scary stuff.

To answer both, at Hiroshima the count is between 50 000 and 100 000 from the initial blast, the explosion in Lebanon pales in comparison, but although powerful enough it was "detonated" at ground level so starting from the blast area the force started to lose power far faster because of multiple buildings, in Hiroshima the blast was in the air at 500(!?) meters the wave was direct to almost everything in its range.
In this case, as far as I can see from Google maps although the area is heavily populated along with the port still the buildings are around 200-300 meters from it, enough for the blast to become less deadly, although the damage looks like a ww2 bombardment the severity seen on buildings doesn't always translate in human deaths, fortunately. The same happened in Oklahoma where only 4 out of ~160 were from outside the targeted building.

Furthermore, share the backups and ways to retrieve coins from backups to at least one person who you love and trust the most is key. Accidents (maybe death) can happen to everyone so don't keep all things for yourself alone, then if something bad happens, your coins will be lost forever.

I have a feeling that the chances of the person you "trust' to steal those keys from you are growing proportionally with the value of your coins, and I've heard of enough family dramas to think that there are higher chances for a friend to rob you than for all your house to go up in flames.
Having multiple back-ups is clearly a solution but I wouldn't really deal with riddles when "encrypting" it, one baseball ball in the head and none of your riddles won't make sense anymore.