PSA: this was posted yesterday by another user, but it was a mere Twitter link in Portuguese. I have dug into the story and translated everything to share here, so that we can understand what happened.
The influencer is Ivan Bianco, who has a channel in Portuguese about crypto. He was talking about his DeFi earnings. He was trying to access his Gala account (crypto-related gaming stuff). He wasn't with his phone and had to open a password file to actually make the login.
“Let me log in here folks, on the other screen so that I don't show my account details. […] I'm not logged in and my smartphone isn't here with me now.”
He then proceeds to open Windows explorer and drags the files for a second screen. However, when he opens a “back.txt” file, it appears on the shared screen and everyone could see it:
https://preview.redd.it/4a60xt02wflb1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13169e25c13e8819c3cbd582d72cf33acf6a114f
“Fuck, I screwed up big time! Will have to close the stream and I explain later on. I fucked up big, big time”, he said immediately, closing the stream afterwards.
Someone was faster than him, though. A few hours later he did another stream, crying and stating that it was his lifesavings (around $50k USD) and that everything he has comes from DeFi.
“He stole everything man, the money of a lifetime. I can't believe I did this, that I screwed this up”
He then pledged the thief to give it back, because he wouldn't even have money to pay his bills because, again everything comes from DeFi. Apparently, the thief returned part of the funds, but I wasn't able to verify how much.
Well…
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Don't store your seed phrase digitally. Ever.;
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Even people who apparently know more than the average Joe can screw up big time;
TL;DR
Mate opened his seedphrase while live on YouTube, someone stole his wallet. Part of the funds were returned.
Do we believe him?
If you realise that quickly that you’ve messed up, you’ve got a head start and surely you can move your coins to a new wallet faster than someone that has to manually type in 24 words.
My heart goes out to the dude. But I just can’t for the life of me understand why would he put his seedphrases and passwords on his notepad on the PC? All it takes is just one wrong software download too and it’ll be gone..
Talk about giving back to your community
I’m not sure what’s worse.
The fact most of us can’t believe someone is this dumb and faked this
or
The fact most of us believe someone is this dumb and didn’t fake this
1/ Having all your password in one file
2/ A digital file on his main computer
3/ Streaming about Crypto
4/ Opening said file live
This guy didn’t make just one mistake. He was begging to get stolen.
‘Influencers’ don’t do things by accident. It’s all staged for more attention and subscribers.
Probably faked it to get more donations
Man this sucks but it is never a good idea to keep seed phrases on a computer, one malware is all it takes for all your wallets to get compromised
Well at least he was nice enough to return some of it
If an influencer only has 50k in crypto
How on earth are they an influencer?
I’m kinda sceptical of anything I see online these days, most things are staged.
My gut feeling says this is his tax evasion scheme. Good way to cash out without paying tax
Fk man really feels bad for him even though this is the peak stupidity that he has done
The OG crypto people hate it but this is exactly why a Spot ETF will be big, people don’t trust self custody for this very reason because it’s so easy to make a big mistake like this, lose your seedpharse, or accidentally send crypto to the wrong address.
Sounds like they nfluenced their bank account to go into another 1
That poor guy, I hope he gets his shit back
Reminds me of the time I lost my wallet and a beggar returned it to me without looking.
He was 100% sure it was empty.
It was.
It’s astonishing to see someone who claims to be well-versed in crypto make such a basic mistake. This incident underscores the importance of cold storage solutions like hardware wallets. They might seem like an extra step, but they are crucial for safeguarding your assets.
This incident brings to light the responsibility influencers have in educating their audience. If
someone with a platform can make such a glaring mistake, it’s a wake-up call for the rest of us
to double-check our security measures.
Some comments suggest that this could be a way to evade taxes or gain more donations. While it’s speculative, it does highlight the need for transparency and accountability, especially when you have a following that looks up to you for financial advice.
We live in a brutal world.
Hahahahahha! And he’s an influencer? Come on every teenager and their pet is an influencer these days, which is fine, until you venture into giving advice about money and you can’t even protect your seed phrase. Pleashhhhh
Sorry but no sorry
i feel for the guy, but some people are just not made out for crypto in its present incarnation.
Publicity stunt
This is why Mass adoption requires reversibility. I was talking to my colleague the other day, and what he said when I asked about crypto was exactly what I’ve been saying the whole time: he doesn’t want to be in any system that’s not reversible. I mean people pay through credit cards partially just for this benefit of easy reversibility in cases of fraud etc. I personally think that we are going to need more reversibility in the financial system with the massive influx of fraud in the last decade through hacking card readers password leaks etc.
It’s why I think defi Will stay niche. I mean you give away your password like this and you’re not going to protected at your bank either, but I think that’s the system we need to be moving to where everything is reversible to prevent fraud.
I tried but couldn’t find any sympathy in me for this guy.
It was not wise to store seed phrase in a text file on your computer anyway.
I don’t believe him. He could be faking it. This is the new ” I lost my seed phrase in a boat accident”
Not your not your crypto means especially if you give everyone your keys
How do experienced crypto uses get into a situation where they post their seed phrase?
My seed phrase is literally on a different dimension and to get it requires a 2 hour long process:
4D Key > Decrypt 4D Block yielding 4 keys > Decrypt 4 encrypted 4D files with those 4 keys > you get 16 keys > Decrypt 16 files yielding 64 results > arrange results correctly > bake them to get one big result > use another key to decrypt the result > you have now the first 4 words of the seed phrase. Repeat this step in different ways to get the other 20 words.
Keep this post hidden. Before I die, I will upload all the necessary files, so people have something to solve. The reward is a wallet containing meme coins.
Streaming and doing private stuff on the PC, bad idea, when i do crypto i even close my eyes!
Holly shit, why not just use a hardware wallet ?