Is Bitcoin's Biggest Threat Actually Human Error Rather Than Hackers?

[Outhue]

I think that we have not seen real human errors by now, because BTC has not went mainstream as a medium of everyday payments (in is mainly the store of value now). When you make (for example) one payment per month you are usually very careful doing it correctly but if you start making many payments per day the role of human errors increases a lot.

What is real human error like?
A human who downloaded the wrong bitcoin wallet to store their Bitcoin is considered human error, a human who also keeps their recovery seed on their smartphone instead of online can be called human error. Someone who send their Bitcoin by their hands to a wrong Bitcoin address should also be called what? Human errors.

Mainstream or no mainstream people who are going to make similar mistakes will still make these mistakes, we keep having new Bitcoin investors and many of them don't like doing a lot of research, one search and they believe it's the right answer they are seeking and they will start doing what they feel is right, to avoid human errors people need to learn how to avoid them all together, most of the time it's because they don't do lots of research first.

[Tetu100]

I agree with your assumption, as it's true that sometimes human error can actually trigger the loss of Bitcoin. For example, forgetting your wallet password or falling into a phishing trap is clearly due to carelessness in safeguarding your Bitcoin. However, even so, in this context, we can't blame just one party. If hackers or fraudsters didn't exist, it would clearly make Bitcoin safer for anyone to own. So, with that in mind, I believe hackers are still the biggest cause of Bitcoin loss. Because they clearly intend to steal, they are rightly labeled as a very dangerous threat today. Even if hackers weren't present, the potential for Bitcoin loss would be much slimmer. So, that's my assumption.

There is none that isn't risky if you ask me, both the human mistakes or hackers. Therefore they should be treated with so much concentration because at the end of the day it's still bitcoin we are still going to lose.

However, the reason why I think that hackers is way riskier than human errors is that hackers might come unexpected and could be very aggressive than minor human errors. A single hacking attempt on your wallet is possible of draining everything you have ever worked for in your whole life. Human errors can be easily controlled or stopped than hacking attacks.

[Davidloki]

I would not necessarily call it human error but I could refer to it as "ignorance" because there is no limit to how well these scams could become more realistic, and the only way to avoid that is constant bitcoin security education. We are imperfect humans and mistakes are abound to happen, even the scammers can make mistakes too.

If there were no hackers, there would be no need to panic for loss of assets so hackers still remain the biggest threat and that remains inevitable.

[Muba20]

‎hackers may steal Bitcoin by exploiting a vulnerability, but a lot of Bitcoin loss happens because of some simple mistakes that people make, for example, sending Bitcoin to the wrong address, losing seed phrase, falling for phishing scams, exposing private keys and signing a malicious transaction. this are the things that are causing many Bitcoin users to lose there Bitcoin.
‎
‎Bitcoin security is actually very strong but if you expose your private key or seed phrase, you will lose everything.
‎When it comes to Bitcoin your security depends on you.

There are many cases where a person's Bitcoins can be stolen through malware attacks, smart contract vulnerabilities or phishing attacks or hacks. However, much more is lost due to one's own personal carelessness or mistakes. Certainly, Bitcoin's security system is much stronger, but if the user does not properly store his necessary information and does not properly ensure the security of his own risks, then there is no chance of holding others responsible for losing Bitcoins.

There are many investors who initially deposit Bitcoins without being very careful. A person can lose his Bitcoins by not storing the seed phrases properly or sometimes by misrepresenting the Bitcoin address. In some cases, they can also make big mistakes like sharing their private keys with others and later lose their assets. If strong security measures are in place, it is not easy to steal Bitcoins through technical attacks, but if the user makes a mistake on their own, they can easily fall victim to the attack and lose everything.

[Alonso_]

I would not necessarily call it human error but I could refer to it as "ignorance" because there is no limit to how well these scams could become more realistic, and the only way to avoid that is constant bitcoin security education. We are imperfect humans and mistakes are abound to happen, even the scammers can make mistakes too.

If there were no hackers, there would be no need to panic for loss of assets so hackers still remain the biggest threat and that remains inevitable.

Human error is something that is normal in a technical sense people can make mistakes, but I don’t really think we have gotten to a level where we can say this errors are significant because when making a transaction in bitcoin we are always careful to watch the address we’re using and everything, bitcoin have restrictions in different part of the world and we’ve not gotten to a level were bitcoin is used globally in every transactions, I feel that is the level were human errors is going to be significant.

However people who makes some simple human errors which is outside transactions, something more like forgetting our seed phrase, and falling into scam, is something that could easily happen to anyone who is new to bitcoin, an individual who have been investing in bitcoin for a long time would definitely know what to do to avoid this situation that could cause panic.

This errors could easily be avoided.

[Bitinity]

‎For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.

I can accept it as an opinion but I do not think it is the fact because we need to prove it by data to consider it as a fact. For example, when some people lose their bitcoin because of phising. Does it considered that it is mainly the user's mistake or it is because of the attacker is just too smart so the users fall into the trap? In this case there will be always unclear border between human mistake and technical attacks as we should take a look at them case by case. This is why threat to Bitcoin cant be simplified to something as what you think where it is mainly being a problem of the users.

[The Cryptovator]

When people are talking about the biggest threat to Bitcoin they usually say it is hackers, exchange being attacked or government restrictions, but what if I tell you the biggest threat are actually the people that are using Bitcoin.
‎
‎For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎
‎What do you guys think?

Technically, Bitcoin can’t be hacked or scammed if you stored it in a noncustodial account wallet that’s proven open source and only you know the wallet credentials. It’s impossible to sign the transaction without wallet credentials like private keys or a seed phrase. That means as humans we make some mistakes, and we have to pay the cost as well.

A few errors happen even if we don’t want them, like we know Electrum wallets are hacked with fake updates. A lot of people lost funds from that. That’s also our mistake since we haven’t verified on the official website whether there are real updates or not. So I agree with that; most accidents happen due to our own mistakes and lack of knowledge.

[Felicity_Tide]

For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎
‎What do you guys think?

But that doesn't make it a threat to Bitcoin. I think the best way to put it is that we as humans can be our own biggest vulnerability, and that vulnerability can only put the Bitcoin we own at risk. Your own vulnerabilities can't be used to target and exploit everyone, unlike those of an exchange, which could affect its customers most of the time.

Of course, there are quite a number of vulnerabilities, especially when we give in to ignorance_{(i.e, things we clearly don't have an Idea about)}. And like you mentioned, phishing scams, pK exposure and signing malicious tx are good examples, but I wouldn't classify the sending of Bitcoin to a wrong address as a vulnerability, especially when it's accidental. I would prefer to call it a human error... although, vulnerabilities can come into play especially when dealing with clipboard malware.

[HajiBagi]

I agree with you that some mistakes is the reason why most of us lose bitcoin, but do not forget that no is above mistake, we are human and we can make mistakes that can affect us, although most of us are too lazy and careless, sometimes instead of checking wallet address before making transactions they will not check it well if it is correct or not, when i want make any transaction, i make sure i check the wallet address, and i want to make the transaction to someone i will ask the person to check the address well, so that i will not make mistake.

As an investor, know that your investment is very important than anything in your life, the reason why i said that is because of the hard work and the sacrifices you made before you invest, you need to be smart and know that the hackers are everywhere, and any mistakes can make you regret that you will never forget it.

[Comeacross]

For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎
‎What do you guys think?

Maybe you should should elaborate on what you mean by technical attacks because as far as I know, almost all bitcoin losses revolve around humans either directly or indirectly.

Direct human mistakes like losing the keys, sending to wrong address etc. Indirect mistakes including falling for scam either by connecting to fake sites, fake wallet, compromised wallet etc. I called this indirect mistake because the attack was planned by someone else.

I don't know what exactly you mean by technical attacks but I haven't seen where bitcoin itself was hacked or wallet got drained without any human involved either directly or indirectly. Bitcoin network itself has never been hacked before. So all losses comes from human.

[Junii]

‎What do you guys think?

I agree that the human error is the risk but as compared to hacking and stealing from wallets it is still small because if u remember  the famous Mt Gox incident in which there were huge quantity of bitcoins stole from the wallet also in 2023 in a ledger connect kit incident the employee was the target in which the hackers inject the malicious code and drain the funds from the wallet of the users so in those cases there were no carelessness of the user and the outcome is also huge of those cases if we compare it with human error.

[M47AK16]

When people are talking about the biggest threat to Bitcoin they usually say it is hackers, exchange being attacked or government restrictions, but what if I tell you the biggest threat are actually the people that are using Bitcoin.
‎
‎For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎
‎What do you guys think?

Technically, Bitcoin can’t be hacked or scammed if you stored it in a noncustodial account wallet that’s proven open source and only you know the wallet credentials. It’s impossible to sign the transaction without wallet credentials like private keys or a seed phrase. That means as humans we make some mistakes, and we have to pay the cost as well.

A few errors happen even if we don’t want them, like we know Electrum wallets are hacked with fake updates. A lot of people lost funds from that. That’s also our mistake since we haven’t verified on the official website whether there are real updates or not. So I agree with that; most accidents happen due to our own mistakes and lack of knowledge.

While it is true, people do save their phrases and access on their PC very loosely so I would say that human error matters even there. Like if you have a folder on your pc labelled bitcoin, and in there you have all the information on how to access your wallet, then of course a hacker could get into it. The wallet itself is safe; yes, nobody can hack or crack into it. The crypto defence prevents that; it would take years for something like that to happen. But that doesn't mean people make mistakes.

I mean, not even that; we have people sending money to scam deals willingly, and that is why the worst thing that we have right now is the fact that we are not going to end up with anything safe as long as people are naive and gullible like that.

[tiCeR]

For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎

What research did you use to make this conclusion?

Although, many people were careless in the past because they did not know that their bitcoin will be worth huge amount of money. Example is if someone bought $20 BTC in the past and the person later know that his $20 is worth $100000 in 2021.

Things have changed now, people are now valuing their bitcoin. I believe human mistakes would have been reduce, although there will still be some people that will make mistakes.

Backup seed phrase in different locations is very important.

They surely value their bitcoin more and if part of the argument was that the caused "deflation" by lost bitcoins could reduce the supply side by so much that it could become a threat to bitcoin in the future, I don't think that is a realistic threat ever. There are estimations about how many bitcoin get lost and I saw this number is said to be somewhere in the five figure range now. If that is true and there are 50,000 BTC lost per year with the number decreasing from year to year as awareness is rising, bitcoin supply could go down by about perhaps 3,000,000 in 100 years. This is just speculation, but bitcoin wouldn't suffer from it thanks to its divisibility.

Sudden recovery of amounts like that is another, not unimportant topic, but lost bitcoins are no threat to the bitcoin network itself.

[Orpichukwu]

Anything that was developed is hackable; some just have top-notch security like Bitcoin, which makes it difficult for hackers, but all the errors don’t always come from users. At least with the recent happenings where Bitcoin wallets are being compromised, we can all agree that one can be extremely cautious of how they protect their seed, not clicking on phishing links, and still end up being a victim of a hack because of their choice of wallet and its security.

[Obim34]

‎For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎
‎What do you guys think?

Talk about the one you have control over, human errors involving exposing your seed phrase or private key, sending transactions to the wrong address, so on and forth, can be individually avoided, that is where the discussion should be focused. Human error can be the easiest means to fault and lose our assets, wallets with maximum protection hardly get compromised.

Storing your Bitcoin in an exchange is already a human error, you just authorized third-party interference, anything could happen.

[Churchillvv]

‎For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎
‎What do you guys think?

When we talk of loss of bitcoin we can't say stolen coins are lost because they are only lost to the user or owner but its still in the records of available bitcoins since they are always in move or transact and at the end some get frozen or seized by the exchanges or government authorities.

But when it comes to human mistakes like lost of keys and those bitcoins are lost forever, then we can't compare because its estimated that lost coins amongst the 21 million coins we have about 15% to 20% lost which is far above what i know is stolen but i could be wrong because some hacks are so huge that they can be up to billion dollars.

[Bitcoin Smith]

When people are talking about the biggest threat to Bitcoin they usually say it is hackers, exchange being attacked or government restrictions, but what if I tell you the biggest threat are actually the people that are using Bitcoin.
‎
‎hackers may steal Bitcoin by exploiting a vulnerability, but a lot of Bitcoin loss happens because of some simple mistakes that people make, for example, sending Bitcoin to the wrong address, losing seed phrase, falling for phishing scams, exposing private keys and signing a malicious transaction. this are the things that are causing many Bitcoin users to lose there Bitcoin.
‎
‎Bitcoin security is actually very strong but if you expose your private key or seed phrase, you will lose everything.
‎When it comes to Bitcoin your security depends on you.
‎
‎For me, human mistakes cause more Bitcoin losses than technical attacks.
‎
‎What do you guys think?


~Supreme

It is kind of true because most of the bitcoins assumed to be lost is not from the hack but losing the wallet file or private keys when the value was nothing compared to now. And humans are prone to make mistakes but a smart one don't make the same mistake again.

Also it is better to avoid the single point of failure, like one backup of your seed/privkeys, taking risk with unknown wallets and such. It's also advised to keep different wallets for different purposes, like a cold wallet or paper wallet for HODLing, created on a completely air-gapped device, and a hot wallet for daily transactions.