The Big Ouch

Re-posted from:

I hate sucking so hard at this, but enjoy the lulz. I just lost $1k+, and you can too! from ethereum

I’ve had the pleasure of participating in crypto for several years, and I’ve made plenty of mistakes, from Satoshi Dice, to buying the early ASICs, to leaving coin on Cryptsy and sending ETH to Tezos, but nothing stings quite as much as today’s debacle. Based on recent events, I can only conclude that I remain a no good dumb fuck and know nothing beyond this fact.

It started out innocently enough, transfer some Ethereum Classic from Bittrex to my Ledger Nano S.

No problem, right? Wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong.

Execution is everything.

In theory, keeping your coins on an exchange like Bittrex exposes you to third party risk. Having been burned in the Cryptsy mess back in 2015 – 2016, I know how quickly a popular crypto hub can quickly turn into a heartbreaking affair. Big Vern, if you’re out there, please give me my coins back. Thanks.

Recently, the worrisome noise about Tethers, Bitfinex, and other exchanges using USDT has gotten louder, so I decided to act. I loaded up my Ledger Nano S, and started the process of transferring some of the coins I stored on Bittrex to my hardware wallet. A few XRP, a lil ZEC, some BCC; all smooth, all good, no hassles.

Then came Ethereum Classic.

I loaded up the ETC wallet on my Nano S, verified the receiving address, and sent a 1 ETC test. Success!

Address: 0x9955e29401F35B91cc466ad5e93e0BD85716fAF4 TxId: 0x343bf941c9e6543d412552dd9fe1a1ebe9d154becc08b483c48cc8694899ecc2

Fully confident I could do no wrong, I initiated another transfer, send the max number of tokens, didn’t think twice about the transaction cost, pressed confirm, two-factor authenticated, and away we went!

Address: 0x9955e29401F35B91cc466ad5e93e0BD85716fAF4 TxId: 0xe0340cc6ba60c9f5a5b7ca2700842f5fe81bbacaaa0b61409b4b94cd4cb688d9

Then nothing. No updated balance, no change.

Well, except for my Bittrex balance. That fell.

And my ETH entry disappeared. Oh fuck.

Like a crushing kick to the groin. The kind that makes you wish you hadn’t woken up that morning. Tightness crushing my chest, blood rushing to my head, my heart palpitating like a I had railed some coke and popped a stacker-2.

Stupid. So Fucking. Stupid.

The irony. Like buying a gun for home defense only to shoot yourself in your dumb little face. Provoked by unsubstantiated rumors, I tried to avoid the risk of keeping coins at Bittrex, but like a fucking shit-brained asshat, I sent the wrong coins to an address outside of my control.

Poof. 3 ETH. $1K+. Gone forever.

I blame nobody but myself. Clearly, I lost my mind, and sometimes it costs you more than you’d like. Tuition always feels expensive, especially when the lesson seem so mundane and simple.

Bittrex tried to warn me:

*Please verify your withdrawal address. We cannot refund an incorrect withdrawal. *Do not withdrawal directly to a crowdfund or ICO. We will not credit your account with tokens from that sale. *In the withdrawal address field, we only support hex addresses. DO NOT use direct iban, indirect iban, or unique userid. A proper hex address starts with “0x” *Please use a small amount for your first withdrawal to verify everything is working as expected before sending larger amounts. *We cannot recover your funds if the address is incorrect.

Verify your withdrawal address. Please use a small amount for your first withdrawal to verify everything is working as expected before sending larger amounts. Done. No problem. I got this, hold my beer.

What happened? You know what happened. Unfortunately, after my successful test withdrawal, I opened the wrong wallet to send the remainder. Yep, you got it. Like a miserable maggot turd, instead of opening ETC, I opened ETH. I failed to check my sending wallet. FML.

I missed all the clues. Like the quantity of tokens getting sent (2.99 ETH instead of 23.99 ETC). The fact that I had to change the auto-fill address that appeared in ETH. That my transaction fee went from .001 during the test to .002 for the rest. Three things that should have tipped me off, plus a moment to reflect and fill in my 2FA number.

And yet to my chagrin, I persisted folly and feel like a can of smashed assholes.

I hope this little tale gives you both the satisfaction of schadenfreude, and also serves as a reminder to everyone in the community. Don’t lose focus. Remain self aware or suffer the consequences. The beauty of blockchain comes from the immutability, but it requires a heightened level of personal responsibility and disciple. Stay vigilant, and always check your work.

When moving tokens, check your receiving address AND sending account.

I know I don’t deserve it, but if the owner of 0x9955e29401F35B91cc466ad5e93e0BD85716fAF4 reads this, feel free to send them back to 0x2Ea9315AB16d2473FEb2b4efA3eC1C137283BB34. Thanks.

Clearly I brought this upon myself by dealing in shitcoins like ETC 😛