The crypto fool

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

- William Shakespeare -

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I'm no fool, I can act it of course, one of my endearing qualities I think - a sense of fun and humour - but generally I'm not a fool. There's those times when I do foolish things though, sometimes by accident, and sometimes because I'm a knucklehead.

A few weeks ago I wanted to send a sum of Hive tokens from one exchange to another. I'd just drunk a bottle of whiskey...or so I'd like to say, but cannot. I was stone cold sober, alert, awake, untroubled, unhurried and not stressed. I was normal, or as normal as I ever get.

But here's the thing...I generated the wrong deposit memo (HBD not HIVE) at the receiving exchange, sent the tokens from the depositing exchange and just like that, lost 1127 Hive tokens.

I knew what I'd done immediately and went into a tirade, cried like a little baby, broke my computer, hung my head in shame. Almost five years of crypto-trading and I make this fundamental error? I was not best pleased.

Of course, after I committed ritual suicide, pleaded with the fairies of crypto to return my tokens, had a coffee and donut to soothe my nerves I applied some logic and raised a ticket with the receiving exchange.

I had originally intended to tell no one about my monumental dumbassery but decided to tell my brother @tarazkp in the off chance he would replace my tokens for me out of pity offer me some comfort. Just for the record, I didn't ask for him to cover my losses but wanted to out of respect and the fact I'm a take ownership sort of man. He offered me some comfort though and it was not as good as the free tokens I wanted very welcome.

In a day or so I received an email asking me to jump through hoops of fire whilst doused with petrol supply some information and photos.

I had to send nudes do a front on, head left and head right mug-shot vibe whilst holding up a page with the date and exchange name in legible hand writing and also hold up my drivers license in the same shots, so that it was readable. Trust me, this is not an easy feat. I sent it all off and got a reply a few days later asking for more stuff. Fuckers.

I sent more stuff and a week later received an email saying they would pull the funds down into my Hive wallet on their exchange; it was to take seven days. I was happy that I'd not have to throw myself off a bridge, feed myself to a T-rex, beat myself with a willow switch send more stuff.

It didn't arrive, and after sending several emails that went unanswered I decided I'd best drown myself, give up and go live in a box on the street, visit my neighbour and beat him up to vent my frustration, come to terms with the fact I lost my tokens.

A week later, today, I received an email from the exchange saying they had funded my wallet with the tokens and, once I stopped crying with happiness, ceased dancing like Fred Astaire on crack checked it was indeed there I smiled and uttered a few welcome home words to my Hive tokens that had come back home to papa.

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My foolish act didn't sit well with me and I'm rather embarrassed about it. The loss of the tokens is one thing, I don't have that much I can't afford to send them into the interwebs to become lost forever. However, I was more annoyed at my stupidity. What if I was transferring 10,127 tokens and lost it all through such an act of nutbaggery? I'd be devastated. It was a good learning opportunity though.

I'm the check, then check again sort of guy when it comes to most things I do but on this occasion I didn't do so because I'm a bloody knucklehead, and I paid the price. I suppose the take-away is the lesson I learned about double checking my transactions and systematizing the process. I now have a checklist I tick off for each step and don't proceed until I have checked the previous step off the list. It's working so far.

Now it's your turn.

Have you ever done the same or similar? What have been your crypto currency errors, (if you dare be honest) and how did you rectify them? Have you got a check-system in place like mine or something similar? If you'd like to, please share in the comments below; who knows, maybe your story helps prevent someone from making the same mistake I did?