How bad would it be to hear, that you lost $150.000 worth of Bitcoin just because of your stupid mistake? The history of a man who did just that recently made it to the local news in England.
How it began
Jacob bought his 2.5 Bitcoins in 2018, at that time worth about $20.000. He thought it would be a good idea to invest his nice salary bonus, so he bought bitcoin and decided to hold it for the next few years. He treated it as a bet for the future.
He has read extensively about how it all works and how you should secure your coins. He bought himself a hardware wallet to keep all his private keys secure. Immediately after acquiring Bitcoins from the exchange, he transferred bitcoins to his hardware wallet. He was now safe from hackers and protected from exchange defaults or hacks. After setting up his wallet, he wrote down the seed recovery phrase on a piece of paper, as asked by a prompt on a device. He double-checked if this is correct and hid his seed phrase paper in a desk drawer with other documents. He did everything as asked by a hardware wallet manufacturer, so he was confident he is safe.
After a few months, the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies plummeted, so he lost interest in it for some time. His Bitcoins lost more than 50% of its value since the beginning, and Jacob assumed it would take a long time to recover, he was patient.
The new found wealth and a despair
In late 2021, Jacob sees a news report about bitcoin's price soaring high, reaching all-time highs around $70.000 for a single Bitcoin. He has realized that this would put his coins at around $170.000 in total, and this would allow him to pay off his mortgage. Jacob immediately started to search for his hardware wallet, stuck somewhere in this wardrobe.
He has found the wallet and put the pin to unlock the device. However, the device erased itself after the third attempt. He forgot his pin code. After some panic attacks, he has realized that he has made a recovery phrase and wrote it down on paper. So he went to search for it. He and his wife have searched everywhere in their apartment, looking twice on every piece of paper they found. They didn't succeed the first day of the search but continued to search for the next 2 months. They haven't found it. This meant that all Jacob's bitcoin would be lost forever.
Jacob realized he must have thrown his seed recovery phrase paper with other less important papers when making a clean-up a few months ago. He shared his sad story with a local reporter at a pub.
Jacob's slsson for crypto holders - use metal seed phrase storage.
As he said to the reporter, he should have secured his seed phrase better, probably by doing a copy and storing it on something more secure, like metal seed phrase storage. There are many seed backup tools available, and they are made from thick pieces of metal or stainless steel. This would secure his precious seed phrase also from fire or flood.
Jacob told the reporter, that he hopes his story would be a lesson for other Bitcoin holders everywhere. He since has bought some bitcoin, this time securing this seed phrase with a stainless steel crypto wallet.
Source: Bristol local news