South African Man Loses $900,000 Worth Of BTC After Accidentally Deleting Keys

[9thsky]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

[1714696373]

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[Rainbow-queen]

He can find a "crypto hunter"  to try his luck.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-fifth-of-all-bitcoin-is-missing-these-crypto-hunters-can-help-1530798731

[goldade]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Well, this is one of the major risks associated with using bitcoin. With a simple mistake, one can lose all in a twinkle of an eye. One of the most effective precautive measures in keep your bitcoin safe is to keep your wallet keys as safe as possible. One method I employed is to make copies of each of my wallet keys and keep them safe. That way, I can always recover it even if one got lost or missing.
I sincerely do hope he is able to recover the coins because that's a whole lot of money to lose .

[btcinmylife]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

If he is paranoid that they're going to not fix the keys then just forget about it, that's the only way that you can't get duped by these recovery expert that you thought was going to help, either they go to the experts that really don't care or just let it go. Also, it's worth noting that if it's the government agency that's going to help you, there's a guarantee that you will get your money back that is if they're able to recover it.

[cheezcarls]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Oh man I feel sorry for that guy. It’s really important to be super extra careful of the things that we store and delete like the private keys. This is why I am very sensitive to some stuff especially when storing these keys offline (and some on my Protonmail account where I’ve also secured my password).

Storing them offline is still the best option.

[dothebeats]

That's a bummer. It's almost impossible to recover those if he would not seek help from data recovery experts in the field. Not just your random tech who recovers files on traditional hard drives, but someone with professional-grade equipment and skills that are specialized on data recovery. $900k is a huge sum, though data recovery is a tedious and delicate process that there is always a chance that the files may never be recovered, but you still have to pay for the work and time of those you hired.

Or if the man is anxious enough or doubtful that these guys will return what they recovered, then perhaps just accept that he did this mistake on himself and that there's no one else to blame but him.

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

No.

[UserU]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

No, they can do whatever they want with your funds.

Remember, not your keys, not your Bitcoin.

[Lucius]

It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that the biggest losers are various computer experts or engineers who should have a much bigger advantage in life because of their education - and instead they throw hard drives in the trash or format them without first checking their contents. These are definitely not the qualities of educated people, and I am sure that these are not the only big mistakes in their lives.

In addition, the title says "accidentally", but you can't format the hard disk by accident, there must be some reason and decision to do something like that. One more thing, given that we don’t have the real name of the person who is allegedly the protagonist of this event, we may need to ask ourselves if the story may have been fabricated.

[o_e_l_e_o]

What a hugely unfortunate boating formatting accident. I can confirm though, I was there at the time and this person also deleted all of my keys too.

Well, this is one of the major risks associated with using bitcoin. With a simple mistake, one can lose all in a twinkle of an eye.

This is not a flaw with bitcoin - this is a flaw with the user. If you can lose all your coins following one simple mistake, then your security set up sucks and you should take immediate steps to fix it. If your entire holdings are stored on one hard drive with no offsite back ups, no written down seed phrases, no redundancy at all, then you really have no one to blame but yourself when you lose everything because that hard drive becomes lost, damaged, stolen, fails, gets water spilled on it, or anything else.

[Kittygalore]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

This is the dumbest way to store your bitcoins, remember that if it's not your keys then it's not your coins. Haven't you heard of hacks done against online wallets and other online wallets that disappeared together with the cryptocurrencies that were stored in their website?

[agg2702]

The most important lesson is that what we do now can make something very valuable in the future. So don't take things for granted that you make the mistake of not thinking about the future.
and loss like this is a risk that must be accepted because if I remember this is not the first time that this has happened and tens or even hundreds or thousands of people have experienced something like this, it's just that the media didn't expose it.
and here it is important for us not to underestimate anything because if something like this happens, the step that is definitely taken is to let it go

[Rengga Jati]

I really can't imagine how he feels if I were him, stressed, moreover with that big amount.
However, he is still trying to be peaceful with his loss condition. So salute to him.
As we know that losing keys means that we lose our assets. We cannot recover it without the keys or phrase.
And Although he may get help from others, can it really be trusted?

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

Are you kidding me?

[Cafex]

This is really an unfortunate incident. But people really have nothing to do when they are in such situations. There is no turning back from it when you lose the necessary information to get access to your wallet. It is not like a system that you can just click "forgot my password" and bingo! And I know this is for security purposes. But still, it is very risky.

[Issa56]

I believe this is one of the main reasons why some people don't really like bitcoin problem of security if you can lost your private key to your wallet then all the coins in the wallet are gone which is very bad I believe there should find solution to this and look for a way to recover your private key even if anything happens to it.

[Yatsan]

That was a really awful situation to happen having your seeds to be deleted which is the only way to access your funds and the reason behind was your own mistake seems to make it more frustrating to the part of the owner. If he would be an ordinary person that do not have the knowledge on recovering the seed phrase to access it and doubting that asking other people for expertise on recovering it, then it would be hopeless to expect that he can have his hand on those hands anymore on whatever his wallet contains because he no longer have his keys.

[bct-user]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

No, man. You make a wrong suggestion. Hardware wallets should be the first option to keep Bitcoin for a long time. Trezor Model T, Trezor One, Ledger Nano S, or Billfold Steel are good options for hardware wallets. Trust me, keeping your Bitcoin on hardware wallets must be more secure than storing your Bitcoin on an exchange.

[livingfree]

How these people are not too careful keeping safely their hundred thousands of assets to nearly a million by doing an accident?

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

No dude.

No guarantee that they'll give you private keys for your coins. Always remember that if you don't have the private keys, it's not your coins. Please do remember that.

[hatshepsut93]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

Maybe some very tech unfriendly people will have lower chances of losing their coins with a good custodial storage, but such people better not engage with Bitcoin at all, because there are so many difficulties for people who are bad with software, so chances of loss are quite high. Being your own bank is a huge responsibility and some people are taking it too lightly.

[SimpleMan]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Well, this is one of the major risks associated with using bitcoin. With a simple mistake, one can lose all in a twinkle of an eye. One of the most effective precautive measures in keep your bitcoin safe is to keep your wallet keys as safe as possible. One method I employed is to make copies of each of my wallet keys and keep them safe. That way, I can always recover it even if one got lost or missing.
I sincerely do hope he is able to recover the coins because that's a whole lot of money to lose .

But the issue mentioned with how do you know that they don't just get the private key and then tell you that they couldn't resolve your problem?

That is indeed a problem which would keep me concerned, but then you have no chance. This guy in Britain who lost his hard drive, or Scotland, I don't remember. Anyway, he threw it away and then asked the junkyard provider whether he could search it because it was like 70 million or so. The junkyard denied and the guy didn't get the chance to search for it. How do we know the junkyard provider didn't go for it himself?

[Sithara007]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

And you will be royally screwed when they ask for KYC, in order to access your coins. Already the governments have mandated KYC for all the mainstream exchanges. The online wallets are going to be next. Imagine getting locked our of your coins, just because you don't want to undergo the KYC process. And in case you do the KYC, then it is goin to open a can of worms. The IRS will send you a notice and ask you to explain all the tens of thousands of transactions that are recorded in your wallet. All the best with that!

[lenovop-70]

How can he do someting sloppy like that ? Dont he know that blockchain doesnt store our key 
The important lesson for me is to keep our keys in the safe place, i usually write it in the notepad and keep it as .rar files and set password for it, for the viruses attack case, i also copy that in other hardware that didnt connect each other.
And last, i write it manually in the paper and store it in my safebox.

Maybe my way to store it too traditionally for this advanced technology, but i believe it is the safes way to keep it.

[777Jolami]

I don't understand what he is thinking, why not backup his private key and put it in other places.  If he is afraid of being hacked, at least 1-2 copies of the key should be backed up, which should be kept in a secret place.  This is a lesson for him and a bell for those who are sloppy.
It's no different than being irresponsible towards one's own property though

[junmisakiro]

It's a shame if we have to lose such a large amount just like that, even though this is purely his own fault because of his negligence and carelessness when dealing with his wallet, so news like this will certainly be a lesson for us to always keep our wallets as safe as possible and always back up private keys, when we made the wallet.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I believe there should find solution to this and look for a way to recover your private key even if anything happens to it.

There is a way. It's called backing up your wallet file or seed phrase. If you don't create proper back ups, then that's a problem with you, not bitcoin.

But the issue mentioned with how do you know that they don't just get the private key and then tell you that they couldn't resolve your problem?

If you know the address, then you can watch the coins to see if they are moved. If they are, you know the recovery company stole your keys. Good luck proving that to a judge though with zero other evidence.

i usually write it in the notepad and keep it as .rar files and set password for it

Don't do that. You already say you write it down on paper. Just do that. Storing seed phrases on any device with an internet connection is a huge risk. If your computer is corrupted, lost, stolen, damaged, whatever, and you cannot access your wallet file, then your electronically backed up seed phrase will be lost anyway.

[buwaytress]

Can't trust the veracity of news like this anymore, especially coming out of a non-mainstream news outlet in S Africa. And no, this isn't just a "it's Africa/Asia so it's fake" but I've followed up a few stories like these before and they always end up not going through the proper journalistic rigour needed.

Anyway, damn. If you have that much money (and that's a hell lot more purchasing power in S Africa) you only have 1 copy and it's digital? Damn.

[Jating]

Can't trust the veracity of news like this anymore, especially coming out of a non-mainstream news outlet in S Africa. And no, this isn't just a "it's Africa/Asia so it's fake" but I've followed up a few stories like these before and they always end up not going through the proper journalistic rigour needed.

I agree, the news said that he has started mining bitcoin when he was 14 years old, so that raise some questions, and in all places, it was in South Africa.

Anyway, damn. If you have that much money (and that's a hell lot more purchasing power in S Africa) you only have 1 copy and it's digital? Damn.

In any case, add these amount this to "lost" BTC already.

Maybe when we hit $100k, we may hear another news similar to this but in different location. 

[Vishnu.Reang]

No sympathies for the individual. If you can't keep the keys securely, then you should not be investing in cryptocurrency in the first place. And for such people, nowadays there is an option of making their investment through third parties such as PayPal. So if you believe that backing up your wallet and enabling 2FA is too difficult, then you can just purchase and store your coins through a PayPal account. There is no room for complacency in the field of cryptocurrency. Your actions are permanent and irreversible. Always keep that in mind.

[buwaytress]

I agree, the news said that he has started mining bitcoin when he was 14 years old, so that raise some questions, and in all places, it was in South Africa.

Yeah, and it's not just in crypto too. Just a lot of crazy news coming out of there that's hard to verify, and harder to believe in the first place. Not saying it's not possible to have been mining when he's 14, but you figure people would have heard about it. Young tongues wag hard, and that's not an insult. I've been 14 before too and everyone knew what I was doing at that age, ha!

[mich]

I empathize with the South African man who lost the keys to his bitcoin wallet.
I feel it must be hard to be an early adopter of a new technology and put his work in as a miner but was not able to reap the financial rewards of his efforts.
However, I think he has a good attitude and I appreciate that he is not looking back with regret but instead looking forward with optimism.
Sometimes life puts challenging obstacles in our way that way can not control, how we deal with these challenges speaks volumes for our character.

[dreamer81]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

Both have risks. Online wallets can get hacked. Though, coinbase is probably among the most secure places.

[Kakmakr]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

You sure? Even though "Exchange" hacks are not that common anymore.... it does happen. Also, Coinbase is basically a Bank and they have the most stupid rules and regulations..... so if you break one of their rules... your account get "locked" and you have to battle them for months to get your own money back.

I have heard some horror stories of people gambling with their crypto and getting their accounts blocked... or underage kids accounts getting locked.... etc. etc...

Many of these "A guy lost 500 coins" stories are fake ....because the shills make up these stories to discourage people to buy Crypto currencies. 

[Sithara007]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

Both have risks. Online wallets can get hacked. Though, coinbase is probably among the most secure places.

If you know how to keep your coins secure, then they won't get hacked or stolen. You can keep your cryptocurrency in any online wallet (but make sure that they allow you to access the private keys). Enable email authentication and 2FA (preferably with Google Authenticator) and your coins will be safe from any hacker. Only in very rare instances (such as an attack using SIM swap, or theft of your mobile phone), you need to worry. But always remember to keep multiple backups of your wallet. Losing access to coins is manytimes more common than coins getting stolen.

[MIldic1c]

This is the most common and easy mistake to make. It is this kind of easy mistake that often causes people to lose a lot of wealth. Therefore, everything we do must plan for the present and the future. It is good to be cautious in all aspects. I have heard of this situation countless times. You can't experience this feeling without it happening to yourself. It should be disappointed, frustrated, and difficult to calm down.

[Poker Player]

Well, this is one of the major risks associated with using bitcoin. With a simple mistake, one can lose all in a twinkle of an eye. One of the most effective precautive measures in keep your bitcoin safe is to keep your wallet keys as safe as possible. One method I employed is to make copies of each of my wallet keys and keep them safe. That way, I can always recover it even if one got lost or missing.
I sincerely do hope he is able to recover the coins because that's a whole lot of money to lose .

That's why I asked recently in a thread I created about additional security measures.

If I had the equivalent of $1M in Bitcoin, I wouldn't have it all in one place. It would be better to have like 3 wallets, with their seeds written and well stored, all stored in different places, the hardware wallets and the seeds, and maybe something else.

[dkbit98]

This could be one of the cases of coins being ''lost'' in boating accident to avoid paying tax extortion, but his story could also be true as we know that millions of bitcoin are lost forever.

There is one more funny case of Swedish Government returning approximately $1.3 Million in BTC to drug dealer, after seized his crypto grew in value since his initial arrest.
Swedish Government auctioning 36 Bitcoin seized by this guy, but they had to return him 33 Bitcoin's, because only 3 BTC was enough to match the fiat value.
I am not sure this would happen the same way in United States or any other countries, but court seems to be doing their job fine in Sweden, until they change regulations.

[Ali771samir]

Many people who used to get bitcoins easily in the past because of the easy mining of bitcoins, today we see them losing their currencies just as easily, which is not a good thing for the digital currency community and causes fear in Communities are talking about bitcoin and it is slowing down the acceptance of bitcoin among the people.

[wxa7115]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Well, this is one of the major risks associated with using bitcoin. With a simple mistake, one can lose all in a twinkle of an eye. One of the most effective precautive measures in keep your bitcoin safe is to keep your wallet keys as safe as possible. One method I employed is to make copies of each of my wallet keys and keep them safe. That way, I can always recover it even if one got lost or missing.
I sincerely do hope he is able to recover the coins because that's a whole lot of money to lose .

This is the thing, you do not need to actually have to face those risks as long as you have several copies of your keys or your seed words lying around in the case you happen to make a mistake.

Obviously this kind of stories are terrible and they are being used to try to discourage people to adopt bitcoin but all of this could have avoided by doing something as simple as a paper backup that takes less than a minute to make and now this person is going to regret this, as it does not matter how rich you are losing that much money for no reason at all is always going to be painful.

[Fatunad]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Really hard to trust someone when it comes to recovery of those lost bitcoin but there are indeed legit services out there which had been trusted by the community although they do really charge up some chunks as a payment but doesnt matter as long you do able to get those coins back rather than on losing it all.

When it comes to your private keys then you should always have several counts of copies so that in case you had lost or accidentally deleted it then you could still have that back up.

Compared when you do have a single save up then for sure risk of losing or odds or chance is high.So you should be careful because that is indeed a ton of money if ever
it wont really be recovered.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You can keep your cryptocurrency in any online wallet (but make sure that they allow you to access the private keys).

This is bad advice. The majority of online wallets are either woefully inadequate and horrendously insecure, or are outright scams. You are gambling with every coin you store in an online wallet.

Enable email authentication and 2FA (preferably with Google Authenticator) and your coins will be safe from any hacker.

This is also bad advice. Email authentication and 2FA is not foolproof and can be bypassed. And even then, they only protect you from attacks against your individual account. They do nothing to protect the security of the actual wallet and system where your coins are stored. 2FA does nothing if the online wallet in question is hacked and their wallets emptied. It does nothing to protect against scams, poor security, wallets being lost, and so on.

Also, Google Authenticator is a bad choice. Better to choose an open source alternative.

[Vaskiy]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Oh man I feel sorry for that guy. It’s really important to be super extra careful of the things that we store and delete like the private keys. This is why I am very sensitive to some stuff especially when storing these keys offline (and some on my Protonmail account where I’ve also secured my password).

Storing them offline is still the best option.

Really pity on losing a huge money. He could've saved the private keys on different locations. Being into the mining process from the age of 14 is big thing and this knowledge could've kept him well aware of the security system of bitcoin network.

Right now only option is to request help with recovery service providers. But we can't expect positive chances on recovering the funds. Maybe this is his fate, so we can't change the situation only God has got the answer for this.

[Oasisman]

So, this happened quite a few years back but the amount of Btc compared to the current price is more or less $900,000.
This story might've been a very fortunate event of an early Bitcoin adopter/miner, but turned out to be a disaster unexpectedly. This is similar to those who bought Bitcoin early in 2010 who dumped their hard drives already before realising Bitcoin has made a significant value in the next few years.

I guess there's no way he can recover those keys since his hard drive has been formatted several times.
I'm not sure If some software engineer or computer engineers would able to restore it.

[Mpamaegbu]

Ouch! That will truly hurt and haunt the man till he passes on. The sad happenstance here is that the victim (should I even call them that?) will feel more hurt anytime Bitcoin begins to moon again.

_{Honestly speaking, as little as 1 BTC may look it's still a big quantity to me.}.

[Slow death]

I feel really sorry for this guy, losing so much money like that Is something to not conform to for many years, imagine if getting poor and bitcoin in a few years goes up to something like $100,000, I'm sure he'll be whining whenever he sees bitcoin and maybe not buy bitcoin again. this is another thing that people need to pay attention to especially when thinking about doing hodl for a long time

_{Honestly speaking, as little as 1 BTC may look it's still a big quantity to me.}.

you are not the only one, the same goes for me

[bryant.coleman]

This is really a big failure, is there really no way to get them back?

The problem is that the hard drive was formatted several times, and data was written over it on multiple occasions. After 2-3 times, it becomes impossible to recover any data. So unfortunately, the answer is no. With the current technology, you can't get the data back. Even if you have some FBI guys to support you, the technology is not that advanced to recover such data. I feel bad for his losses, because he's so young (unlike me  ). Hopefully, he will be able to carry on and book profits from cryptocurrency in the near future.

[SirLancelot]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Damn, that’s a really bad news, seriously. That’s why if you’re storing your keys in a place online, it’s best to make use of a platform that won’t delete your files straight up when you click on the delete button, but rather move it to a trash page where the files can stay up to thirty days before they delete automatically. That way if you make this kind of mistake you will be sure that the folder or file has not been completely deleted and can easily be recovered from the trash section of the app.

Another important thing to do is to write it down on a piece of paper or something like that. As for those helping him to recover it, I don’t think they can steal and hide it, because he will be ale to check his address on blockchain and know when the coins there are moved.

[Artemis3]

Before getting into Bitcoin, or at least before handling large sums, LEARN to make a cold wallet. Its literally write a bunch of words in a piece of paper with your own hands.

Once you practice enough creating and re-creating your wallet from your seed words make another copy (also by hand, no electronics) and keep them in separate physical places. Delete everything. Make sure you have plenty addresses copied to send funds to it.

NOW you can start moving your large sums into that savings wallet.


And if you ever need to move funds out of it, do it with the utmost precaution, using safe a OS such as Linux, etc. Move the funds out and delete everything (turn off if you simply booted from an optical media). The cold wallet will always exist as long as the seed words are safe.

When you are your own bank, you have to start acting like one. This is no games and there is no hand holding. Those are not "simple" mistakes, those are STUPID mistakes that could have been avoided by reading a little.


But people don't read, because they have money, they think that's above them or something. Bitcoin is not at fault, the user is, always. Bitcoin works, and has been proven for more than a decade, it works well, when used well. If you can't bother to learn, then keep paying others to take custody of your money, as you are clearly incapable of doing it.

[Argoo]

You just don't have to trust electronics. It must be borne in mind that all this equipment has the ability to break down and become unusable for various reasons. All secret keys still need to be unambiguously printed in paper form and stored securely. And it is stupid to store them in electronic form for several reasons. You always need to be reinsured, especially when it comes to large amounts.
A significant part of the cryptocurrency is lost and will still be lost due to errors and careless actions that cryptocurrency owners commit. In general, there is nothing we can do about this problem. Such problems will always arise from time to time.

[cryptoperkele]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

Are you kidding me?

If you don't mind taxes or possibility to gov seizing your funds, btcinmylife is actually correct. Places like coinbase offer way more security then most people could, and their funds are mostly insured anyway. I know it's against the whole original idea of owning your keys, but i sleep safer when i know there are more safety measures keeping my assets safe then trusting myself with them. Hell i even lose my car keys all the time.

One of the major reasons why people didn't want to hold cryptos in exchanges back in days was the fact that they were unsecure, unregulated, waiting to be hacked or exit scamming and most of the smaller and new ones still are shady as hell. Luckily you can easiy regocnise them because they do serious amount of fake volume without any real liquidity.

But what it comes to original article, it's possible to lose keys, i've done that too, but it's impossible to prove that you did lose them and are not just avoiding taxes. I personally don't trust people by default if they lose lot of money. Because that's how i would avoid taxes if i wanted to do that.

[Ararbermas]

Having such amount of bitcoin and he don't even have a back up for recovery? Well probably they don't have consideration when it comes such thing wherein even its very important incase of emergency.  I don't know if they're thinking about such issues.. Or it's just nothing for them? Because you know if you really care about your stuff especially when it comes storing money, you will make a way or option incase what will happen to your important files and etc.. It's a big mistake to be honest wherein leaving your stuff without any backup. i hope that man is doing well right now..

[aysg76]

Well, this is one of the major risks associated with using bitcoin. With a simple mistake, one can lose all in a twinkle of an eye. One of the most effective precautive measures in keep your bitcoin safe is to keep your wallet keys as safe as possible. One method I employed is to make copies of each of my wallet keys and keep them safe. That way, I can always recover it even if one got lost or missing.
I sincerely do hope he is able to recover the coins because that's a whole lot of money to lose .

So if you lost your fiat from your pocket while roaming in the market would you blame the government for making such notes? Or if you have already read the precautions that work is going ahead so be slow and you still ignore it and accident occurs whom will you blame? The first and most important task is to backup your keys safe with you and if you can't do it simply don't hold bitcoins with you.There are many such instances and with this lost bitcoin the supply of 21 million is already reducing and according to some reports 4 million coins will be lost and 1 million coins are with Satoshi which we assume as dormant till date.So we can't blame Bitcoin for it as network is designed in such a manner and it's our safety.Decentralisation and freedom of funds comes up with some responsibility.

[Reatim]

He can find a "crypto hunter"  to try his luck.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-fifth-of-all-bitcoin-is-missing-these-crypto-hunters-can-help-1530798731

Yeah Hunters can either help him or take advantage of him , but that is is Only hope i guess.

Ouch! That will truly hurt and haunt the man till he passes on. The sad happenstance here is that the victim (should I even call them that?) will feel more hurt anytime Bitcoin begins to moon again.

Just  like how we feel( who once sell our coin when the price is as much as 3 digits)

_{Honestly speaking, as little as 1 BTC may look it's still a big quantity to me.}.

We are all mate , we knew that majority of us here harder even to earn  or gain 1 whole bitcoin.

[noorman0]

-snip-

Don't know how much value you save in those custodial services. You have to be careful, what you think is good enough can turn against you. They usually make you comfortable with small deposits, then confiscate your funds once you start making big deposits. Of course with those security and insurance offerings, you have to abide by their rules of the game.

In my opinion, your principle is not the meaning of freedom (decentralization) that crypto was introduced for.  It is no different from adopting a government currency,

[swogerino]

I feel sorry for him but that's life.Keeping your keys secure is the user responsibility as they say who owns the private keys owns the Bitcoins.It is great that he is looking forward with optimism and hopefully this accident has taught him a thing or two.I personally am a fanatic of backups,I use SSD-s,couple of them that I make clones to my complete OS with the wallets and private keys in there just in case something happens to my PC and it goes down.I keep them in my small safe and I know that the chance that three SSD-s fail at the same time is less then 0 in percentage or impossible to happen in human language.

[imstillthebest]

it sounds dumb but it actually happens for real like on what happen to me last time i accidentaly deleted a key for one altcoin that i hold and the saddest part is that i cant be able to recover the deleted key, how come right ? but other deleted files are showing perfectly  .

how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

he can sit and watch beside the guy that will recover his wallet . they cannot lie if you are witnessing what their doing or if he can just do it himself because there are lots of tutorials on the web in regards for this matter .

[kryptqnick]

Perhaps Bitcoin is not for everyone if people can just lose something that important, but it also teaches responsibility, and hypothetically everyone who's dealing with money is supposed to be responsible. Also, having $900k worth of anything at 24 seems like too much, but given that he was an early miner, I'm sorry for his loss. It's good that he's at peace with the loss because others could easily commit suicide after something like this, and I don't think the money can be recovered at this point. I wonder how many more people lost their money like that because of getting BTC when it was worthless and then forgetting all about it.

[DeathAngel]

I hear about stuff like this all the time & it’s terrible. Please do some damn research on how to look after your bitcoin & make situations like this impossible for you.

Cold storage guys.

[omone1]

I started my bitcoin journey in 2017, my very first diary for keeping bitcoin info and other related cryptocurrency information is still intact and it's new everyday. I have been teaching crypto since 2017 and I don't anyone without them having a good diary and telling me how they intend to secure their asset. I don't want to entertain any sad tales.

[QuickAccount]

That really sucks for the guy in the original post I hope that it hasnt impacted his life enough for him to cause harm to himself, hope hes safe

[Anonylz]

One thing is for sure, I don't want to be in his shoes, I don't know how I will react to such a grave mistake, am just feeling really bad for this fellow,  crypto is a very sensitive space and things like keys and wallet phrase should be properly kept in a secured place because once anything happened to this phrase and keys, uour asset has gone down the drain, this is such a bad situation.

[ILuckyGuyI]

What a pity! We have seen some other examples like this also before. Keeping wallet information in a safe place should be the number one concern for an investor. Because there is no turning back when you lose it once and can't remember. Unless you remember, your coins are all gone. So one should just let that sink in and act according to this.

[BuNga_cute]

One thing is for sure, I don't want to be in his shoes, I don't know how I will react to such a grave mistake, am just feeling really bad for this fellow,  crypto is a very sensitive space and things like keys and wallet phrase should be properly kept in a secured place because once anything happened to this phrase and keys, uour asset has gone down the drain, this is such a bad situation.

Of course losing a large amount of Bitcoin will be very painful for anyone who experiences it. Therefore, if this does not want to happen, we really
have to be careful in maintaining our private keys and wallet passwords. Store properly and safely, there have been many articles and discussions
on this forum that explain how to store private keys and passwords properly. Never underestimate the things related to private keys and
passwords, because we all don't want to lose our Bitcoins.  

[worldofcoins]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Ye, that's an obvious giveaway.
If he makes up his mind to use a recovery service then he should know that there's always a possibility of no recovery disregarding Recovery service lying.

Also, it's not like the service holders are going to know instantly that this is a bitcoin wallet private key unless they use the wallet or have 3rd party information gathering on the data they recover.
Or he can directly tell the service providers what's in it and they'll get some percent of it after a successful recovery.

[iTradeChips]

This is really a big failure, is there really no way to get them back?

The problem is that the hard drive was formatted several times, and data was written over it on multiple occasions. After 2-3 times, it becomes impossible to recover any data. So unfortunately, the answer is no. With the current technology, you can't get the data back. Even if you have some FBI guys to support you, the technology is not that advanced to recover such data. I feel bad for his losses, because he's so young (unlike me  ). Hopefully, he will be able to carry on and book profits from cryptocurrency in the near future.

Now that is a problem. If I have that kind of Bitcoin amount meaning very big amount. He should have asked some experts on how he can make his investment safer, for a fee of course as I know those who handle cryptocurrency security are getting paid for their services. Millionaires tend to try and protect their assets and the person should have done so as well. He will be able to carry on with life and hopefully learn a valuable lesson from this.

[meanwords]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

This is probably the saddest thing I've read on the forum today. I mean, it's not his fault because people make mistakes like this often, especially when you are really an early bird. Like who would expect Bitcoin to grow like this at that time? We really can't blame him for that. At least he had learned his lessons and still into cryptocurrency though. What's important is that he is aware about cryptocurrencies and is positive about it.

[Kelvinid]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Well, that trust broke him instantly. I'm not sure if he is not totally aware of the possible hacks but he just let someone do it in front of him because of such trust thing that he endures to someone who couldn't be trusted. I can't imagine losing it but to say, it was really happening and could happen to anyone in the future.

This actually gives a lesson, not only for him but also for everyone who keeps their keys/password on the laptop/PC. If it needs some repairs, it was best to do it ourselves or to rely on a close and trusted friend of yours, that was guaranteed safe, I think.

[molsewid]

this is a very confusing and sad thing how it is possible for someone to delete an account and lose millions of assets from bitcoin, and of course it is very impossible to restore assets that have deleted the password in your bitcoin account, what happened to this South African man was such a folly that he had to remove the password by losing millions of dollars in bitcoin

Reading this thread I come to think how do this man left no marks of his keys like does he didn't write it down in any of his book because knowing that this key contains a hundred thousand worth of BTC deserves to be written in any of my favourite book that I've read. And if he didn't make any note about his private key in his digital wallet then I think he couldn't do anything to retrieve it. I feel sad about him because I do know that it takes a lot of time for him to accumulate this huge amount of asset.

[macson]

One thing is for sure, I don't want to be in his shoes, I don't know how I will react to such a grave mistake, am just feeling really bad for this fellow,  crypto is a very sensitive space and things like keys and wallet phrase should be properly kept in a secured place because once anything happened to this phrase and keys, uour asset has gone down the drain, this is such a bad situation.

the nominal is not small, surely i will be very stressed if i become that person.  Since reading the number of people who have lost their passwords, private keys, and even wallets that have been accidentally deleted, i've become even more careful with my passwords, private keys, and BTC wallets.

[Imran232]

I feel soo sad for him. $900k is a huge amount of money its a bad luck for him. If he write down on a physical note book now he didn't fall into this problem he might save his money. Storeing secret key on online, hard drive is not quite safe because all those things are technical. And if anything happen like virus attack or something your file can be crushed. So the best way is too keep it write down on note book which quite safe. And second thing about recovery i saw lots of experts talk about this so i think i didn't need to tell anything else. Thank you.

[Fortify]

https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/man-loses-900000-worth-of-bitcoin/

I think if he offers an NSA grade data recovery outfit a couple of btc, that they'd recover it for him.
But then how can you trust that they won't say they couldn't do it went they actually did.

Sometimes it is simply impossible to recover data if it has been mangled badly - large portions may be missing which might as well be the hold thing due to the way the security of a bitcoin wallet is structured. It's certainly worth a try to use recovery services in this situation, but it can cost a lot of money upfront for no guarantee of recovery. They might even recover the amount and sit on it for a few years before taking the money for themselves if they found out the true value - possibly destroying whatever is left of the original hardware to make sure no one else can get to it in future. He will definitely be kicking himself for years to come and hopefully makes peace with the loss.

[Kayum10029]

Oh my goodness, it's a big mistakes in the history because in the modern time how a person can delete his personal wallet keys. Before any deletatoin one should check his data again and again. I feel very sad for this mistakes.

[wxa7115]

What a pity! We have seen some other examples like this also before. Keeping wallet information in a safe place should be the number one concern for an investor. Because there is no turning back when you lose it once and can't remember. Unless you remember, your coins are all gone. So one should just let that sink in and act according to this.

The owner had mined those coins long time ago and did not expected bitcoin to get so valuable so soon and did not took the right precautions in order to protect his bitcoin, however while we can in a way understand why this happened as back then the worth of his 20 coins were not that high we must make an effort to protect our coins at all times even if we do not think they have a lot of value right now.

After all if the price of bitcoin really skyrockets during the next decades then bitcoin that due to the current standards could seem as just dust could become valuable enough and by the time we want to recover those coins we are going to go through the same scenario, so always remember to keep a physical copy of your seed words and the passwords necessary to open your wallet so this does not happen to you on the future.

[lixer]

Oh my goodness, it's a big mistakes in the history because in the modern time how a person can delete his personal wallet keys. Before any deletatoin one should check his data again and again. I feel very sad for this mistakes.

I haven't read the entire story but I think such keys can be easily restored by using data recovery software or since the amount involved is gigantic, he can also hire an expert to help him out and promise them a good amount. If my maths is right, it is nearly 20 BTC that's lost and any good hacker/technician will recover them for a mere 1 BTC.

This private keys and decentralization part of Bitcoins is what makes it tricky sometimes. I have friends who always ask me what's the best wallet and while I refrain from suggesting them custodial wallets, I don't have a very good suggestion to offer them regarding the non-custodial ones because all these core software can be tricky for a new user.

[DapanasFruit]

I am hoping that I will never experience this same problem in my entire lifetime or in my involvement with Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency for that matter. What I experienced was losing my Bitcoin to scammers which appealed to my greed that I would be earning more Bitcoin if I joined their schemes...but at the end I was crying and holding an empty bag. What this unlucky man lost is a substantial amount of money and I am sure he is very devastated by it and he can only blame himself and nobody else. With the vision that nobody can touch your coin but you it also means that it would be so difficult if not impossible to recover one's private keys when lost...and since keys could not memorized by anybody except maybe a genius like The Rain Man then we can be in quandary under the same situation.

[AicecreaME]

This is such a tragic event for every investor and holder of btc. Given that huge amount of btc, it's really necessary to always be careful and have back ups on where to store your private keys aside from just storing it online. Because events like this really happen and when it happen to you, you will regret big time for not being extra careful on securing your assets.

There is still a possibility that his private keys would be recovered. However, it isn't guaranteed. He should definitely hire experts in the field of restoring because surely this won't just be an easy work. Computers, softwares, and skills are needed to do such work. It would be very tiresome and would certainly take time. Paying the professionals is one of the possible way, but he should also know that whether they would recover his private keys or not, he should pay them for their service. Also, there's a possibility as well that if he happen to stumble upon greedy experts, they wouldn't return his keys despite recovering them. It's easy to lie after all that you haven't recovered it and still be paid, then you have the keys for yourself.

[MartinsCoin]

In this specific case it was a reserve of almost 10 years ago, when bitcoin was worth pennies, at the time he was very young and he didn't imagine that bitcoin was worth much in the future making the withdrawal
for original bitcoin wallet software without worrying about storage and without taking care of the private key. Bitcoins were stored on the computer's hard drive, that's when it happened formatting and bitcoins are lost forever. It was very common in the early days of bitcoin for many people to explore bitcoin just for fun, as bitcoin was not thought to have such significant value as it does today.

[zanezane]

On the one hand, I feel very sorry for him, but on the other, I am to blame. It is better to keep such data well.

Why would you be blamed though? Do you know the guy? The problem with keeping data right now is that it's really hard to be consistent, one second this is safe and then the next one it isn't, you really don't know how to keep it consistent because technology keeps on changing and everyone wants to make money.

[wack slacker]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

Even if he leaves his Bitcoin online, the possibility of loss is still possible. My friend forgot his wallet recovery keychain and he lost his money. He sent a letter to Coinbase wallet support, but they couldn't do anything because the signatures are private and confidential.
Many people have lost their Bitcoin wallet password and can't find it again.
The news from the above article is a wake-up call for us about managing our cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is financial freedom, self-regulation. It is not like a traditional bank, so we need to be serious about managing our own assets.

[eaLiTy]

~
I haven't read the entire story but I think such keys can be easily restored by using data recovery software or since the amount involved is gigantic, he can also hire an expert to help him out and promise them a good amount. If my maths is right, it is nearly 20 BTC that's lost and any good hacker/technician will recover them for a mere 1 BTC.

If he has the hard disk with him, he can use any decent recovery tools and try to recover everything and it is not a huge deal. There are many who never bothered about the coins when there were no valuation and millions of coins were lost because they forgot the password and some never bothered to keep a back up of their private keys and once the price started to rally some bothered to check their old wallets and then found out their grave mistakes.

If he still have the password stores in a notepad he can always recover even if he formatted multiple times.

This private keys and decentralization part of Bitcoins is what makes it tricky sometimes. I have friends who always ask me what's the best wallet and while I refrain from suggesting them custodial wallets, I don't have a very good suggestion to offer them regarding the non-custodial ones because all these core software can be tricky for a new user.

There is nothing much confusion, all you need to think is like a bank vault and you can print out the private keys and keep them safe. There are many light weight wallets available in the market which are much easier to use in mobile as well like Electrum, Armory, Edge which can be used in multiple platforms and OS and then there are hardware wallets. You will get all the tutorials online and it is not that hard.

Never suggest custodial wallets.

[Kiley33]

Sad things, we must keep the private keys and secret keys,
We can tell our family members our password or private key.
If we accidentally delete all our passwords, the chances of recovering them may not be very high.
This incident is also a good reminder to us that some consequences may not be affordable.

[bittraffic]

This is really a big failure, is there really no way to get them back?

The problem is that the hard drive was formatted several times, and data was written over it on multiple occasions. After 2-3 times, it becomes impossible to recover any data. So unfortunately, the answer is no. With the current technology, you can't get the data back. Even if you have some FBI guys to support you, the technology is not that advanced to recover such data. I feel bad for his losses, because he's so young (unlike me  ). Hopefully, he will be able to carry on and book profits from cryptocurrency in the near future.

Now that is a problem. If I have that kind of Bitcoin amount meaning very big amount. He should have asked some experts on how he can make his investment safer, for a fee of course as I know those who handle cryptocurrency security are getting paid for their services. Millionaires tend to try and protect their assets and the person should have done so as well. He will be able to carry on with life and hopefully learn a valuable lesson from this.

I think it still can be recovered even if the drive was formatted several times. Computer forensics are experts in this field of recovering data fits worth doing but this is if he trusts the experts for this. Files in the drive are not actually erased by are simply rewritten to can be recovered. $900K is worth doing for sure.

Keeping your private keys in a text file is easy but it should have been backed up in a price of paper too kept in a safe place in case the computer crashes.

[leea-1334]

I haven't read the entire story but I think such keys can be easily restored by using data recovery software or since the amount involved is gigantic, he can also hire an expert to help him out and promise them a good amount. If my maths is right, it is nearly 20 BTC that's lost and any good hacker/technician will recover them for a mere 1 BTC.

So why do you not read the entire story then? Have you ever tried data recovery software? I even use it many times to try and find deleted Microsoft office files and most of the time even if I can recover something,,, it is not the fully intact file with many things changed or missing, or corrupted.

This hacking thing is not as easy as in the movies man

[Wawa2013]

This is really a big failure, is there really no way to get them back?

The problem is that the hard drive was formatted several times, and data was written over it on multiple occasions. After 2-3 times, it becomes impossible to recover any data. So unfortunately, the answer is no. With the current technology, you can't get the data back. Even if you have some FBI guys to support you, the technology is not that advanced to recover such data. I feel bad for his losses, because he's so young (unlike me  ). Hopefully, he will be able to carry on and book profits from cryptocurrency in the near future.

Now that is a problem. If I have that kind of Bitcoin amount meaning very big amount. He should have asked some experts on how he can make his investment safer, for a fee of course as I know those who handle cryptocurrency security are getting paid for their services. Millionaires tend to try and protect their assets and the person should have done so as well. He will be able to carry on with life and hopefully learn a valuable lesson from this.

I think it still can be recovered even if the drive was formatted several times. Computer forensics are experts in this field of recovering data fits worth doing but this is if he trusts the experts for this. Files in the drive are not actually erased by are simply rewritten to can be recovered. $900K is worth doing for sure.

Keeping your private keys in a text file is easy but it should have been backed up in a price of paper too kept in a safe place in case the computer crashes.

In theory it can be recovered data on the drive, but sometimes in practice it is not easy to do so. It is necessary to seek the help of people who
are experts in this field, but of course we have to find someone we can trust,  because this involves a large amount of money. But based on
my experience, sometimes the data that is successfully recovered is often already corrupted and can't be reopened. Take this incident as
a valuable lesson for all of us, always keep private keys in two or three different places. If something untoward happens, we still have another
private key storage area,  sometimes we really have to get used to thinking about the worst case scenario.

[vapourminer]

It is better to store BTC in an online wallet, such as COINBASE .

Are you kidding me?

yeah, absolute worst advice ever. only time coin should be stored at an exchange is if maybe trading (good luck) or if you have an amount laddered there for automatic sells/buys. and then only enough to cover those orders.

then be prepared to lose it all at any time. seriously.

[clint25n]

this is very unfortunate with what happened to the African man so that he had to lose so many bitcoins, maybe this can be an experience for all of us to be more careful in using an account like for example we want to lock our account temporarily but don't delete the account or the password that makes us have to lose bitcoin, because this often happens when we want to lock our account for a while

[Nutrient]

This is heartbreaking. Saving the keys offline isn’t always 100% safe. One should consider saving keys on some secured folder online. The online options is usually backed up

[firesurfer]

His mistake comes from his experience.  No one can be very careful with adolescence.  They are often arrogant, hasty and careless in everything.  Also, during the time this man forgot his Bitcoin, there were also millions of Bitcoins lost for the same reason.  The time has come for us to plan with our Bitcoin specifically.