Electrum update: A trader lost 1400 BTC

[Yaunfitda]

1400 Bitcoin equals $ 16 million at the moment. Why could he be so careless? That's the bulk of his wealth, I think if he deposited his money in a reputable exchange he probably wouldn't lose all of his money. This will be a lesson for us in managing our assets. The best way is to use the latest and licensed software.

This is not the first time that we have heard someone losing their big chunk of bitcoin through this message. The problem is that the guy didn't even bother to check the latest Electrum version and it seems he was really out for 3 years (for whatever reasons it maybe). It's just one days, he decided to check his assets, so we don't know where he is living for the last 3 years that he didn't know what's really going on crypto or at least with Electrum. A lot of options is available for him to store his bitcoins but he didn't. Disheartening to hear this news, unfortunately there's nothing that we can do as it is a foregone conclusion.

[Jet Cash]

It still surprises me how someone can own 1,400 BTC but still fail to secure the Bitcoin stash using a couple of Hardware wallets that don't cost more than 100 quid each  

Or at least run a wallet on a pruned node.

[o_e_l_e_o]

so we don't know where he is living for the last 3 years that he didn't know what's really going on crypto or at least with Electrum.

That's even more careless on his part then. If he was genuinely out for three years, and hadn't been keeping track of bitcoin or Electrum at all, then he has no idea what could have happened to Electrum in that time. It could have been abandoned, been sold by the developers, been bought out by some shady corporation, been turned in to literal malware, and so on. He just blindly downloaded it and opened his wallet without a second thought, when all he knew about the software was that it used to be good three years ago.

It reminds me of someone I saw on Twitter who had a ton of some token and missed the window to exchange them for coins after the token launched their own blockchain, which as with this Electrum bug, was a widely discussed event. If you can't keep even the slightest bit up to date with your investments, then you should probably just put everything in a fiat account and be done with it.

[roadrunnerjaiv2025]

You should have included in your post the actual tweet so readers won't immediately jump to the conclusion that it's Electrum's fault, although I'm not saying that they are not in any way liable. Also, most of the tutorials I've watched and read explicitly advise the use of a hardware wallet when storing huge amounts of bitcoin. This situation just proves it right. I hope they recover all of it. That's 1400 BTC after all.

[TryNinja]

x-post:

Is Binance's CEO fudding on Electrum for some reason?

Not your code, not your funds. Beware of this Electrrum official update. This guy lost 1400 BTC, and plenty of others lost funds too.

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1300060478656274433

Is he aware that he's the one running a custodian service?

Also, like I said in the other post, there is no apparently proof that this guy ever got scammed. He just posted "I got scammed, here is the address". And that was enough for Binance to black list the address?

We blacklisted the addresses involved, but ...

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1300061833299070976

[o_e_l_e_o]

Is Binance's CEO fudding on Electrum for some reason?

It makes no sense. "Not your code?" Is he suggesting everyone should be writing their own code and their own wallet software? And how exactly is that an argument against Electrum while not also being an argument against custodial wallets like his exchange? Also, it obviously isn't an "official" update. This is complete nonsense.

Also, like I said in the other post, there is no apparently proof that this guy ever got scammed. He just posted "I got scammed, here is the address". And that was enough for Binance to black list the address?

The address in question has been posted in multiple other scam accusations regarding the same bug, and it did indeed receive a 1,400 BTC transaction as claimed.

[wxa7115]

According to a tweet shared on the CZ Binance twitter page, a trader has lost around 1400 BTC due to electrum software updates. Some other users of electrum wallet also complained that the message about update comes directly from the electrum server.

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/5072#issuecomment-683356052

While I'm definitely sorry for this person because he has lost a fortune at the same time I cannot believe that a person can hold more than 16 million dollars, avoid checking their coins for three years, not update his wallet during that time and when he decides to do so he update it his wallet not from the official source but from another website and think that everything is going to be OK.

If I had such an enormous amount of bitcoin I will have taken the time and money to buy several hardware wallets and only deposit a fraction of my savings in bitcoin to each one of those wallets, that way if I lost one of those wallets and I lost as well the seed words then my loss will not be as big and I will still retain the majority my capital, so please to all of you learn the lesson, you are your own bank, if you make a mistake no one is going to save you, you need to take care of your coins because if you don't then no one is going to do it for you.

[carter34]

I doubt Electrum has anything to do with this scam! The person was probably using a compromised wallet .exe file. See what he says,

I had 1,400 BTC in a wallet that I had not accessed since 2017. I foolishly installed the old version of the electrum wallet. My coins propagated. I attempted to transfer about 1 BTC however was unable to proceed. A pop-up displayed stating I was required to update my security prior to being able to transfer funds.

I installed the update which immediately triggered the transfer of my entire balance to a scammers address.

So I suggest you to change the subject line of your thread as it seems that Electrum itself did such scam!

I read this well informed piece. Nice @ avitz for sharing this. And Op has to adjust the title of this thread. He or she is yet to do that

IMO, the title and body isn't approximate on electrum.

[DeathAngel]

Terrible shame, any time you’re having a bad day think of this guy. I’ve seen too many of these type of stories, nobody should be keeping that amount of coins on a platform like Electrum.

[jossiel]

Most electrum users are aware of the said bug and warning from the website itself. Owning 1,400 BTC should make him more careful of updates and bugs from the wallet that he's using.

Is he that a busy person to forget this hefty amount of wealth and download the outdated version carelessly?

I doubt that he forget it, probably just letting it sit there for a while, he said he didn't accessed the wallet since 2017, so I have the impression that he knows he had it. But he doesn't have the security hygiene to check everything before downloading the supposedly latest Electrum.

$17 million gone just like that, so sad to hear that these criminals are really milking crypto enthusiast. But I would say that it was clearly a big mistake on his part and no one to blame but himself.

Very sad indeed.

And that's too much for him to learn about learning to check the bugs and attending to the warning of software that he use. The lost that he made is just unacceptable on his part and he can't think of his mistake.

If he's a whale, I hope that this isn't that he got and he still have some other "untouched" wallets that has a lot of bitcoins.

[Twentyonepaylots]

Terrible shame, any time you’re having a bad day think of this guy. I’ve seen too many of these type of stories, nobody should be keeping that amount of coins on a platform like Electrum.

This is an unforgettable mistake, one day he can tell this to his grandchildren if time comes. I've seen a lot of this too, but this is huge, 1400 BTC is around $14 million dollars, he can bought 2 mansions from it. Software wallet was never safe, there are really bugs and holes in the security. if he's taking 1400 BTC in a single wallet then he probably more in different wallet, if I got that huge amount of bitcoin I'll just put it in a hardware wallet. How I wish 

[BlackHatCoiner]

Terrible shame, any time you’re having a bad day think of this guy. I’ve seen too many of these type of stories, nobody should be keeping that amount of coins on a platform like Electrum.

This is an unforgettable mistake, one day he can tell this to his grandchildren if time comes. I've seen a lot of this too, but this is huge, 1400 BTC is around $14 million dollars, he can bought 2 mansions from it. Software wallet was never safe, there are really bugs and holes in the security. if he's taking 1400 BTC in a single wallet then he probably more in different wallet, if I got that huge amount of bitcoin I'll just put it in a hardware wallet. How I wish 

Actually no, I disagree that software wallets are unsafe. If you are understand how they work, you can store a million bitcoins. If you are paranoid like me, go buy a useless laptop (worth of 50$) and do it cold storage. You can't get "hacked" this way.

Yep, his grandchildren will be like "GRANDPA WE COULD HAVE A BILLION DOLLARS RIGHT NOW" (oops speculation).

[MCobian]

I am always speechless when I read bad experiences like this, because the amount that is missing is not small.
In my country if you have 1400 BTC, including the rich people. Therefore this must be a great loss that will not
be forgotten. Do not let us have to experience events like this first, then be more careful in protecting the Bitcoin
that we have.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Terrible shame, any time you’re having a bad day think of this guy. I’ve seen too many of these type of stories, nobody should be keeping that amount of coins on a platform like Electrum.

This is an unforgettable mistake, one day he can tell this to his grandchildren if time comes. I've seen a lot of this too, but this is huge, 1400 BTC is around $14 million dollars, he can bought 2 mansions from it. Software wallet was never safe, there are really bugs and holes in the security. if he's taking 1400 BTC in a single wallet then he probably more in different wallet, if I got that huge amount of bitcoin I'll just put it in a hardware wallet. How I wish 

Actually no, I disagree that software wallets are unsafe. If you are understand how they work, you can store a million bitcoins. If you are paranoid like me, go buy a useless laptop (worth of 50$) and do it cold storage. You can't get "hacked" this way.

Yep, his grandchildren will be like "GRANDPA WE COULD HAVE A BILLION DOLLARS RIGHT NOW" (oops speculation).

You can still install malware on an airgapped software wallet or somebody could clone your hard drive. A hardware wallet can still be hacked if you have physical access to the device but it is not as easy. If you have 1400 BTC your best options would be a hardware wallet, preferably one that can function offline like Coldcard, or an encrypted paper wallet. It's almost no effort and low cost for that additional security.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Terrible shame, any time you’re having a bad day think of this guy. I’ve seen too many of these type of stories, nobody should be keeping that amount of coins on a platform like Electrum.

This is an unforgettable mistake, one day he can tell this to his grandchildren if time comes. I've seen a lot of this too, but this is huge, 1400 BTC is around $14 million dollars, he can bought 2 mansions from it. Software wallet was never safe, there are really bugs and holes in the security. if he's taking 1400 BTC in a single wallet then he probably more in different wallet, if I got that huge amount of bitcoin I'll just put it in a hardware wallet. How I wish 

Actually no, I disagree that software wallets are unsafe. If you are understand how they work, you can store a million bitcoins. If you are paranoid like me, go buy a useless laptop (worth of 50$) and do it cold storage. You can't get "hacked" this way.

Yep, his grandchildren will be like "GRANDPA WE COULD HAVE A BILLION DOLLARS RIGHT NOW" (oops speculation).

You can still install malware on an airgapped software wallet or somebody could clone your hard drive. A hardware wallet can still be hacked if you have physical access to the device but it is not as easy. If you have 1400 BTC your best options would be a hardware wallet, preferably one that can function offline like Coldcard, or an encrypted paper wallet. It's almost no effort and low cost for that additional security.

I don't know how much does a hardware wallet cost but I consider this the best way:

Buy a 50$ laptop and a fresh usb. Download electrum latest version and install it on the cold storaged laptop. Verify the signature of electrum. Create a seed, save it on a paper (and memorise it). Then burn the laptop and/or destroy it. This way you can be 100% sure that the laptop won't "fool you". Save the paper on a book or whatever.

It's not that I consider hardware wallets unsafe, I just like having bitcoins without trusting the hardware company.

I don't get how you can get a malware with the way I mentioned.

[yhiaali3]

I don't think he downloaded the electrium wallet file from the official website, maybe he downloaded a phishing file from another site, one of the members posted something similar here in the forum where he downloaded an electrium wallet and it turned out to be a phishing file and stole all of his bitcoins.
Pay attention to downloading the file only from the official website: https://electrum.org/#download
You should also download the latest updated version only because they have put a warning there:

Warning: Electrum versions older than 3.3.4 are susceptible to phishing. Do not download Electrum from another source than electrum.org, and learn to verify GPG signatures.

Basically, it is a mistake to put this large amount in one wallet, he had to put bitcoin in more than one wallet, and it is better to use a hardware wallet such as Trezor or Ledger !!

[bitsurfer2014]

I find it doubtful why would anyone would have the audacity to store 1400 BTC on a single wallet which is not updated regularly!

If I had been the owner of those Bitcoins, I think I would have stored it proportionally in more than 10 different wallets just to be more safer. Imho.

[piebeyb]

1400 is not a small value, if I were him I probably would not have saved it in my Electrum wallet, because of security, of course I will definitely take care of the money properly, at least I will break up all the funds using a different wallet, currently I only use blockchain wallets and it was very safe for 5 years after I moved it, it's just that I didn't access it anywhere except at my house, it's a shame to lose 1400 BTC 

[Finestream]

According to a tweet shared on the CZ Binance twitter page, a trader has lost around 1400 BTC due to electrum software updates. Some other users of electrum wallet also complained that the message about update comes directly from the electrum server.

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/5072#issuecomment-683356052

This is a trick the hackers have done in the past and are still doing until now, lots of victims on this trick already. If the user just easily follow the link where he will download or update the app and not verifying if the site is legit or not, then hackers could easily steal your bitcoin, I just don't get why the user does not manage the risk effectively, putting 1400 btc in one single wallet is not managing the risk.

note: picture attached already broken.

Terrible shame, any time you’re having a bad day think of this guy. I’ve seen too many of these type of stories, nobody should be keeping that amount of coins on a platform like Electrum.

This one is the biggest amount I've seen so far. 

[Kakmakr]

They say if something smells like shit, the probability is high that you stepped in it.  

I remember when this problem was first mentioned on this forum and the Electrum developer team almost immediately reacted with a patch to solve this issue. It was highlighted on their website and it was posted on Reddit and on this forum and several other Crypto media platforms.

I sometimes wonder if stories like this are not made up to discredit the Crypto currency community. It is easy to fabricate something like this, because it is a known vulnerability and you simply have to transfer coins out of your wallet to a Bitcoin address that you own and then tell people that you were a victim of this scam.  

Being in control of your own wealth, comes with great responsibility. If you cannot follow basic directions, like updating your wallet to the latest version of the software, then you should stick with centralized organizations that charge you to manage and secure your wealth.