Vitalik Buterin calls for wallet solutions to address crypto loss, not just theft

According to Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, although theft is often discussed in the safety of cryptography, many people also lose significant quantities of crypto due to negligence and accidents, and portfolio solutions must also respond to these risks.

In his Recent article on xVitalik Buterin drew the attention of the cryptographic community to the fact that many people lose their crypto thanks to a real loss (due to forgotten passwords, software bugs or lost devices) rather than flight. While conversations on crypto fraud have been spread, especially in the wake of the flight of $ 1.5 billion by Bybit (although the exchange fully covered Loss by loans, whale deposits and ether purchases), Buterin stressed that the real loss of cryptography is ignored in the discussions on the security of cryptography. He added that robust Wallet safety solutions should explain all forms of loss, not just hacking.

One of the most notable and tragic examples of crypto loss is the case with James Howells, including the hard drive containing 8000 bitcoin (BTC), now worth hundreds of millions of pounds, was accidentally rejected by his ex-partner in 2013. The hard drive was probably on a landfill belonging to the Newport municipal council. Despite the legal action, Howlls failed to recover the device. Now, with the landfill site closing over the next two years, Howlls weighs his options: he can either continue a case at the Court of Appeal or try to Buy the site With the help of investors. For Howlls, recovering his digital portfolio has become the mission of his life. “This battle is my 9 to 5 years – I will not stop until I have my 620 million pounds sterling of Bitcoin”, “,” said Howell.

Howlls’ situation is an extreme case, but it highlights a more important problem. Losing crypto due to negligence or accidents is far from rare. According to the 2020 report by analysis chainAbout 20% of the bitcoin extracted at the time was considered “lost” because it had been trapped in wallets that had not seen any movement for years (more recent statistics are not easily available).

That being said, there are rare cases of recovery. Such an example implies Stefan ThomasWho spent 11 years unable to access his Ironkey hard drive, which contained 7002 BTC, after forgetting the password. However, he was able to recover it with the help of the Pirate Joe Grand and the security researcher Bruno Requião Da Cunha, who developed a new approach to break the password by analyzing the software used to generate it.

Despite occasional success stories, the reality is that cryptographic recovery is difficult. As Vitalik pointed out, the industry must not only focus on prevention of hacks, but also ensure that users can recover their crypto in the event of loss due to accidents or human error.