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

[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.

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[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.