Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has called for “truly robust wallet solutions” that reduce the risk of accidental crypto losses.
While much attention has been paid to crypto hacks of late, with more than $1.4 billion recently stolen from crypto exchange Bybit, Buterin argued that not enough attention is paid to helping those whose digital assets have become inaccessible.
“Software bug, forgotten password, lost device, paper wallet burned down in LA fire, upgraded device without backing up data … lots of ways for that to happen,” he tweeted.
Buterin added that many victims are “too ashamed” to talk about these losses because “they see no one to blame for themselves.”
The 31-year-old has long been an advocate for social recovery—and wrote about the need for a radical rethink of wallet design back in January 2021.
At the time, Buterin argued that a social recovery system would allow crypto investors to use their wallets as normal, with “guardians” in place if they end up losing access.
He said backup devices or paper wallets, friends and family, or institutions could end up serving as guardians. Buterin himself revealed last year that he keeps the bulk of his own crypto holdings in a multisig Safe wallet.
Earlier this year, Bitcoin exchange River estimated about 1.6 million BTC has been lost forever—and there’s no shortage of horror stories out there.
Decrypt has regularly reported on James Howells’s battle to recover a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC that he threw away in 2013. It’s currently languishing somewhere in a Welsh landfill site.
Last year, a Brazilian YouTuber was hospitalized due to “stress” after losing access to a hardware wallet containing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin. And back in 2020, Crypto skeptic and gold fan Peter Schiff lost “all the Bitcoin I have ever owned” after failing to write down his seed phrase—perhaps explaining his well-documented antipathy towards Bitcoin.
More recently, True Ventures partner Kevin Rose revealed that he lost his home in the California wildfires and the Trezor hardware wallets inside—and has been left temporarily unable to access his crypto keys held in a nearby bank safety deposit box.
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