This is story about an experience in my current crypto-life that you don’t want to encounter yourself. By sharing my stupidity, negligence and over-excitement, I show you how easy it is to make mistakes dealing with crypto currencies. By sharing this story I try to make you self-aware of the ease of performing irreversible actions and I hope I can prevent you from doing the same.
It was the second evening of the year 2018. I drove to a friend’s house to pick up my newly bought Ledger Nano S. He bought it last year for me at the Back Friday sale for a, compared to the amounts lost, negligible discount. We shared some crypto experiences and I headed home so I could protect my wallet still that night from the angry outside world. The next morning I had to work again after a good Christmas holiday so I wanted to fix this quickly.
When I arrived home late in the evening, I sat behind my computer and started configuring the ledger. Another friend advised me to first test if the recovery possibility of the 24 words that the ledger generates, worked. I typed the words in Notepad, without saving it. Full of confidence I copied the words in MyEtherWallet. Worked, and all fine! I could see the generated Ethereum address. Since little time was left I quickly restored the ledger to factory defaults so I could transfer my portfolio to the highly secured wallet. The new sequence of 24 words I physically wrote down on the Recovery sheet, intending to use the wallets related to this Mnemonic Phrase .
By stupidity, tiredness and resulting inattention, I sent all my funds to the first Ether-address. The wallet was still active in my browser, and after refreshing I logged in with the 24 words still in my clipboard. I turned off the computer and have lost any trace of the 24 words. The next morning I verified my actions at work:
And there they are. My beloved DLT assets that I’m holding since the Agrello ICO and that will never return to their owner anymore. A reminder in eternity to my rushed and rash action.
It seems very simple and obvious to mitigate the risks related to crypto transactions, but since they are so obvious you just forget about it when overexcited with new gadgets and or limited time available. Please take in mind the following takeaways for yourself.
1. Take your time | Plan sufficient time and don’t let yourself be distracted
2. Find confirmation in your actions | Check, check and double check.
3. Think in real world value | Thinking in fiat value makes you fully focused on possible impact.
4. If you are in doubt, stop! | Overthink your actions and seek help if you’re uncertain.
5. If you don’t want any digital trace, always write down outputs | Even when it’s a test!
Cheers Maurits
You are sincerely thanked for donating to my (working) ETH account so I can rebuild my DLT holdings: 0xc371969979D89594C799f9DcD01065CcBb72204E
This is the address of the Ethereum address with the lost private key (24 words): You can see the DLT and CAT tokens there and they will never move again! Locked forever…
https://etherscan.io/address/0xeed6214ebb27566a743bd0dc1bd43f2ba0599bab#tokentxns
