"Measure twice cut once!" Back in the days when I was studying industrial design they taught us that saying when we would head to the wood, metal or plastics shops to build mock ups of our creations. Yes, one error could cost you time and money. It's better to take your time and double check before making a move as final as cutting a piece of material!
In the crypto universe one error can also cost you money, a lot of money, an ever increasing amount of money! Let me explain what happened to me and perhaps it will help you to avoid the same error!
My Biggest Block Chain Blunder
Many of you know that besides being active on Steemit I am also a big believer in the future of Bitshares and I've been a regular buyer of them.
Way back on March 27th 2017 I decided to buy 1 BTC worth of Bitshares in order to add to my holdings. While using blocktrades.us to enter the account to transfer the funds to I made the fatal error of entering the wrong account name! This resulted in my losing access to 206,032 Bitshares which have a value right now of over $82,000 dollars (if left in Bitcoin the value would be about $19,000). A value that I see increasing over time.
If you examine the account that I erroneously sent the funds to you'll see that the username is cu and that once the account was registered it has only been used to receive 2 deposits from me. Never before and never since! I have tried to contact the owner of the account but to no avail.
The second transfer of 2 bts that you see is my attempt to contact the owner of the account to let him/her know of my error. The transfer included a memo explaining what happened and offering a substantial reward for the return of the funds. I also made a similar announcement in the BitShares forum.
What Lessons Can We Learn?
First of all this error has nothing to do with blocktrades.us. Their service and customer support is excellent. The fault and the problem lay entirely with ME. In fact the owner of blocktrades wrote me that he had made an even bigger blunder and many other crypto users have related similar errors that they have made.
In summary, YOU are responsible for your own funds, your own security and your own errors. When making transfers always double check the name or the account number that you are sending to. Once you press send there is almost never a chance to turn back. You are, in essence your own bank and your own bank manager.
Be careful, be cautious, be alert and remember, "MEASURE TWICE CUT ONCE"!
I hope that this information will help you to avoid costly block chain blunders. Stay safe, stay happy and Steem on!
What About You?
- Have you ever made a costly blunder?
- Are you super cautious when making transfers?
- What is the worst crypto blunder that you've ever heard of?
I hope that you enjoyed this article "My Biggest Block Chain Blunder or How I Lost More Than $82,000!"
Until next time,
@kus-knee (The Old Dog)
I hope that everyone in the Universe (and a few of the other nearby ones) reads and pays heed to your message @kus-knee
Upvoted and resteemed!
Yes it is an important message!
Thank you for this post @kus-knee.
So sorry to hear of it......appreciate the reminder of the saying....'Measure twice and cut once.'
Yes...I will certainly be more careful after reading your story.
Happy Christ-mas to you and yours. Cheers.
Yes, this post was akin to a public service announcement. I'd love to have those more than 200,000 BitShares back but lesson learned!
damn, that guy certainly got lucky. Can't say the same for you :P
That account was probably set up by a bot during the early days of bitshares to try and scoop up thousands of account names (really short ones, or potentially valuable famous ones) in the hopes of selling the account later at a profit when bitshares became established. The person who ran the bot has probably never even checked individual accounts since. I am pretty sure he is totally unaware that he has @kus-knee's tokens.
The vulnerability to this abuse by bots was removed soon after the thousands of accounts were made.
But that is no solace to @kus-knee in his situation. He just has to say "live and learn" like I had to when I sent 1000 bitUSD to an account set up by someone to mimic another account by changing one letter. Same thing happened to me on steemit.com when I sent some funds to blocktradess (note the double "s" at the end) instead of to blocktrades with a single "s".
"Measure twice, cut once" indeed!
Wise words from a crypto sage!
Thanks for your kindness!
Yes if he ever accesses them. The account sits unused!
Wow, that is a substantial error!
I haven't made a mistake I couldn't correct yet, only one so far... I knock on wood! I have had a great teacher, it helps me a lot and I hear his voice every time I am moving through a crux. Thanks @onceuponatime for this, it has been as smooth as can be.
Namaste :)
I'm very sorry for what happened to you dear friend @ kus-knee, it's a real shame and a lot of money lost, however, I assure you that in some other way you will recover your money again.
I tell you an anecdote, before knowing steemit, I worked in pages of ptc, faucet or mineries, all my savings went to a bitcoin account, the most tedious trbajao in these pages is to solve the chaps, that is why there are companies that provide a service of instant decoding of chaps, I trust one of them and I stole all my savings in bitcoin, today we were talking about something like 60,000 dollars, was demoralized and broke without money, a few days later I met steemit, there life gave me revenge and it gave me back the trust and a lot of the lost money.
Everything that happens there is somebody who sees, if you work in good faith, you will be rewarded, that I learned throughout my life. You are an excellent person, you will see that in less accounts you will have recovered all your money.
I wish you a wonderful day dear friend
You provide gracious, wise and comforting words. I am OK with what happened. The value at the time was only $1,000 so it did not cause me any hardships. I have been blessed with many times that with Steemit!
Check twice, thrice, but transact once! I couldn't sleep when i mistakenly transferred $100 worth of forgotten crypto back then, mistakes were made and valuable lessons are learned. Keep it up, press on! More power to you dawg! :)
Woof!
Thanks for the Woof!
Oooohhhhh...speechless....
I'm sorry for what happened... As they say, things that happens to the workers! Btw thanks for sharing this experience and for the advice. I personally try to pay attention when I transfer cryptos but I do realize that sometimes I do things to quick and this basically the good condition to make a mistake! Just a wrong letter and that's it! I think blocktrades and other services are good, but maybe they can improve by setting up a confirmation panel (as happens in my e-banking plattform), so to help people check twice....
You offer a good solution regarding the confirmation panel.
Ouch! Saved this for later to re-read as a reminder of what and what not to do......................
Yes i am the perfect example of what not to do!
So sad to here that :(
Wow man, that sounds like one of the biggest fails ever, Its a shame the you could not contact the owner for the account. Your loss is a really bad thing, but thanks to you thousands of new users will be double checking the account names at the moment of sending money.
That is my hope, that others are more careful!
that definitely hurts. But yea it can happen so so easily. With banking you are dealing with both a name and an account number so that makes it basically impossible to send wrong. With bitshares and steemit things are much more convenient but in the same time caution is definitely needed.
Nice to hear you studied industrial design :) That was my major as well. Did you study industrial design for furniture or for something else?
In those days it was called furniture and product design. I then worked mostly designing furniture and store fixtures for many years and I occasionally worked on other products. I did all of my drawings by hand and rendered everything in pantone markers, ink and prisma colors! No computers yet!
I loved it and miss it but here I have a new creative outlet.
This indeed is a creative outlet ! Wow I would love to see your drawings posted here one day. Inreally admire the skill of working by hand when it comes to design. Sure the digital world has brought many improvements and simplification. Still pen against paper is something special
Interestingly I wanted to write also a post today for being careful on blockchain / crypto especially really double-check where you send funds - just did send some SBD to wrong address, lost, however not worth 82k but still.
Please do write your article. Everyone need to be careful and learn form our mistakes if possible!
will do later buddy.
I am very sorry about this big mistake. Of-corse there are so many lessons to teach from this.Did you give up contacting him ?
Thanks for sharing. I had similar scare of missing fund using bitcoinatm but it was just very congested slow btc network. I didn't go through the KYC step as I had an identity fraud attempt on me so send more id info to services sounded like a bad idea. I rather pay the higher cost of bitcoinatm to buy btc.
Yes centralized exchanges can be scary!
OOOuuch!!! What a lesson!! Thanks for sharing your story and helping to raise the awareness of how easy it is to make a mistake, and how important it is to really pay attention to the details. "Measure twice, cut once" can come in handy in many situations. A great reminder on many levels.
Thanks so much for the visit @everlove! You are such a lovely person and your comments are always refreshing to me!
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That really, truly sucks. Oh man... I'd go nuts, how do you keep a steady hand from the hilt of your sword?
So who got it or did it go to an accounted account?
Even the oldest of old dog would be biting at the nearest thing that fits in its mouth. Truly a master of his domain. I also have been a huge fan of BTS since I discovered it. I was buying like mad when it was less than 300 Sats and BTC was much less then $500 each then. BTS has been one of my biggest crypto scores ever.
How can I help?
I know that you are a big BTS booster. No need to feel sorry for me or help me. Bitshares has blessed me abundantly and will, I believe continue to do so!
Holly f. Sorry to hear that. And yea, it sucks even more when bitshares' price increases in time.
I've received a gift from someone a while back in bitshares but I fail to remember the credentials to login now..
I'm sure that are people who played around with bitcoins 7-8 years ago, and splashed hundreds around. Imagine how they feel...
Wow, how much did you receive? Back in the early days when the value was a few cents we were tossing them around like little candies!
It might have been around 2cents or less so yea...
I will do some digging tomorrow, hopefully I can recover account.
Wow, Actually I have no words... that is a lot money, I feel sorry as well.....
My blunder is that I bought not enough STEEM....
No problem, I got over it and have plowed ahead. I only relate this story in order to help others. :)
isn't there really any way to track the account and its owner?
My attempts have been unsuccessful. As I mentioned the account has never been used since.
Measure twice, cut once. Important words, indeed.
As I recall, one of the very first posts I read in Steemit was about someone who had ended up sending a large sum to some account that was "not quite Bittrex" and had lost it all... and I have been utterly paranoid ever since... double and triple checking every wallet address, and when I have larger transfer amounts, chopping them into several smaller bits "just in case."
Sorry this happened to your, my friend... hopefully the universe will reward you back for posting this warning to others.
I was upset for about a day. The actual amount lost was closer to $1000 but it has grown into over $82,000 and could actually end up being much more than that!
My bitcoin is still in trouble and has not been confirmed until now, it's been nine days
Gee I'm sorry to read that!
I so very sorry to hear of your misfortune Old Dog, you're the second generous steemarian I've heard about today who made a costly mistake.
I hope some huge karma event happens and clears this up for you.
Oh I've already been blessed many times over and it is forgotten except in the sense of being more careful.
Yup I also made a blunder when I was new to steemit. I sent my steem to my coinpayments wallet but while entering the address coinpayments.net I only entered coinpayments because I thought there was no need of .net and lost my funds.
Sorry to read that but you are now a better and more careful man!
Oh, that's terrible..I'm sorry that happened. I learned that saying from my father, a carpenter, and have applied to many aspects of my life. Bitshares seems quite complicated to me. I bought a couple hundred with steem awhile back, but haven't had the time to experiment with it too much since then. I will strive to understand it after the holidays. Have a great day @kus-knee!
For now don't worry too much about understanding them. Just hold onto them. Then can easily be traded for other tokens or exchanged for fiat. In the meantime the upside is huge in my opinion.
I do sorta have this urge to pick up some more, but I can't tell myself why lol. I guess when the time is right for me to know, the way will become clear. Thanks for the encouragement!
Whoa! That is huge.
Yes huge indeed!
Sorry that it happened like that! It is one of my biggest fear when it comes to exchange. It takes only one tiny mistake and poop..there goes the fund..
A healthy fear is a good thing!
I will keep your welcomed advice in mind for future reference. I am fairly new to cryptocurrencies and here on Steemit, however understanding through others' experiences is useful especially as a newcomer. I thank you for sharing your personal experience.
I hope that you never experience this and I wish you blessings, happiness and success!
I'm sorry that happened to you. Indeed, that person who received the money is bad. But that's all karma, so it should have been.
Yes it is very unlikely that anyone knows that they have these funds. The account sits untouched and in my opinion lost or forgotten.
Every mistake has its own good side, we go on.
I started the challenge to help new users, I nominated you in the challenge (maybe it's a stupid idea of my enthusiasm) - you can see on my post
SBD ( Steem Dollar ) Challenge - Seven Days ( We Share Love And Support ) Day #2
Thanks for great support @kus-knee
In my opinion it is indeed a big mistake but on the other hand you definitely will be cautious in future that is for sure .
Damn no ,i have made error but never made that much error ;)
Yes I hope to avoid this and I hope the same for all others!
Thanks for sharing it buddy ,Will be more careful with my transactions !
I am sorry to hear that.
Shared with my followers.
Thanks so much for that!
Christ!!! That's one super huge amount of money, sad it got to the wrong hands. I can't imagine myself in your shoes...hmmph. I triple check before making any Transactions but then anything could go wrong and when it does....I just try to forget it tho it hurts as hell. Thanks for the heads-up Ol' Dog
Yes, I don't think that it is anyone's hands. Its sitting in an abandoned and forgotten account! They also estimate that 4 million Bitcoins have been lost! Wow!
that's a really big blunder i check thrice to be sure and if not sure even after that double cross check if by finding the exact match ...i will take extra care from now onwards
Ok you're right "measure three times, then double check and then cut once!" One can never be too careful!
only when the transfer amount is high ;) mistakes do happen
Wow! What a horrible mistake! They say we learn from our errors, just wish yours wasn't quite so painful...
The pain is long forgotten! The embarrassment still remains but if others can benefit I need to tell the story!
That kind of loss would be hard to swallow, sorry that happened to you. I am usually pretty diligent when transferring crypto, so my blunder is not an input error on my part. My error is in not holding on to my crypto. Back when Litecoin was around 30 to $40 I sold 10 Litecoin for about $400, today it would have been worth around $3,200. And even worse I sold 500 SBD 4 right around $500. Today that would be worth around $5,500. Definitely kicking myself in the butt.
I am not a good trader so generally I buy and hold in the 3 currencies that interest me at the moment.
yes, me too. I made a mistake. but not that big. it was just around 50 USD which I lost by enter the wrong wallet address. That time I was very angry on myself, need that time I am very important the money. it teaches me the same. always double check. the higher the amount, the more double check I need.
You are right. Sometimes we need hard lessons!
OMG that a big lesson.. but on the other hand if you keep thinking about it you will never be happy anymore... Start focusing on the future... and maybe if you buy for $1000 bitshares now, you can write next year that you made $50000.. keep positive and keep steeming... look to Steem.. I wish I joined 1 year earlier.. I didn't... I could have met you and @onceuponatime in Amsterdam at steemfest...
Yes I am long over it. No bad feelings remain. Easy come and easy go and lesson learned. I had already been buying Bitshares and have continued to do so! Things are looking good but I'd like others to learn from my mistakes.
@kus-knee Could a resource like Clearify help with the issue you've reported? https://www.clearify.io
I have never heard of that but I will check it and I thank you for the link.
What a big loss. :-( Hopefully, someone will react to your message.
Informative post!!!
One day bitcoin will buy me a Lamborghini
Damn dude!
Am very sorry about your loss. Thanks for the warnings .
Blunder 1: Used Poloniex, the transaction was in limbo for a month, but I did receive my funds.
Blunder 2: Used Poloniex again.
Thanks for this information, because recently I was researching methods of trading steem and ran across an article which included Poloniex as an option. I am not that familiar with them, but now I know to be careful.
The site will often warn you in advance if the transfer cannot take place but sometimes the warning is not up in time. Always check first if transfers are possible. There are others issues with the site, but this is all I will say for now.
Thanks for the forewarning, I greatly appreciate it. I did a little research and found that there's been tons of people having issues with them, understaffed or poor customer service.
It's true. There are many people having issues with that one. Keep researching, you'll find a good exchange. I can't recommend one to you. If something goes wrong, I don't want to be the one responsible. Like Kus-knee said the post, we're on our own to get this stuff right. Don't dive unless you know the water is safe.
I thank you for your honesty, and respect that you don't want to recommend an exchange site. I appreciate the advice I've read on here from many people and truthfully, can't ask for more. It is always good to get help from others but you have to be willing to help yourself as well, I've learned. I have been looking into various avenues of investing and trading over the last several days since I want to truly spend more time on Steemit and help to raise awareness and interest in participation here. I have suggested the site to others and hope they will take the time to join. It hasn't been too much trouble for me to explore and learn new things thus far and the content more than makes up for anything I may have lost not being as active on other mainstream sites such as Facebook. I truly enjoy the people I've interacted with here so far and hope to form long lasting friendships eventually. I am here for the long haul so I am sure in due time I will pick up some additional insights on how to manage! Thanks again, and I hope to hear more from you along the way. Have a great week!
Thanks for your experience!
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crypto and bitcoin
Ouch! Thanks for sharing
It is very sad, and something that the software should know and check, but alass, we are lagging way behind in the sort of user friendly functions on block-chains.