Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 119 posts

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#101

Post by setgree »

fileeditview wrote: post #7

The most downvoted comment in the Github issue seems totally right.. why did this guy put his life savings in a crypto? Even without making any mistake this seems like a dumb move.

A non-diversified portfolio is the predominant risk factor here. This guy lost his life savings in crypto, while other people poured everything into Worldcom, their dream home in Miami, etc. Crypto might be riskier than those classes of asset, and its evangelists might be at fault for encouraging first-time investors to make potentially ruinous bets -- but the story of people becoming overly invested, emotionally and financially, in the new hot thing is much older than ethereum.

It was also in poor taste to scold him on the GH issue. It can wait, poor guy is just asking for help.

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#102

Post by JaTochNietDan »

fileeditview wrote: post #7

The most downvoted comment in the Github issue seems totally right.. why did this guy put his life savings in a crypto? Even without making any mistake this seems like a dumb move.

Yeah, I don't know about you but I've got all my life savings in the safe haven that is Tesla stock.

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#103

Post by noxer »

fileeditview wrote: post #7

The most downvoted comment in the Github issue seems totally right.. why did this guy put his life savings in a crypto? Even without making any mistake this seems like a dumb move.

Ever thought about that its simply not true? He wants help to get a significant amount of money back. People do everything in such a situation including making up a story that gets the maximum attention. Maybe it really was all his savings but lets assume it was only halve of it the story would almost certainly read exactly the same.

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#104

Post by [deleted] »

pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #99
evan_ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s just gone, like he’d set cash on fire... right?

It was never 'there' to begin with, so it's not like that, really. It's like he said, "Hey, let's play a game. Right now, everyone agrees I should have 50k quatloos to do something with. (That's not the game; that's a fact and the premise going into the game.) The game is this: I'll write a note, and let's all agree that ultimately I will no longer have 50k quatloos after I publish the note, okay?" In fact, it's so m…

[deleted]

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#105

Post by twox2 »

_vek1 wrote: post #39
howlgarnish wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's a very valid question, it's not helpful to the OP.

It is helpful for whoever is thinking of investing all their money in cryptocurrency and finds this on Google.

Exactly. People need to know that there are many ways to make all your money go poof in crypto.

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#106

Post by twox2 »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #85
fileeditview wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the comment is a bit harsh but it may add something to the discussion. Hopefully it is a warning to others to not go this path. Where else would you leave such a warning if not in the actual thread?

If watching someone lose $50k USD equivalent doesn't prevent someone else from doing this sort of thing, a random internet meanie will definitely not dissuade them.

Random internet meanie aside, if this happened to a friend or a family member, I would absolutely try to explain to them that they were an idiot for putting their life savings into crypto in the first place.

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#107

Post by twox2 »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #97

It seems like this is an issue of tooling, no? If crypto by definition is to be without governance, and contracts are immutable, then you better use some damn good tools/services to make sure transfers and contracts are setup and executed correctly. Any type of silly mistake like this should be made practically impossible, since it's inherently irreversible by design. So was this guy just playing around with manual s…

I think crypto requires low level interactions for things like this. Tooling is good for abstracting payments, but if you're using it and don't understand what's happening under the hood there are so many pitfalls.

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#108

Post by wegs »

CJefferson wrote: post #3
mudge wrote: post #2

Poor guy accidentally sent his funds to the wrong address, losing his life's savings. More info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/kdwg1b/i_lost_all... And here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/ke2hxz/aavegotchi... And here: https://twitter.com/mudgen/status/1338967176968069127

While I accept it's a tradeoff where other people might take another view, this is type of thing is why I personally don't want to put money into blockchains. I want mistakes to be fixable, by going to court if necessary, rather than money just being lost forever because I mistyped a character and "computer says no".

And in banks, all your money can be frozen by a hostile government, for example.

Diversification.

I DO keep all my money in Western financial institutions, but that's laziness, not out of some misguided perception of stability. If I were optimizing, I'd have some in US institutions, some abroad, some in land, some in blockchain, some in gold, etc.

The US has had a nice 250-year run. Past performance doesn't always predict future performance, and more importantly, if I live 100 years, that means the US has been around for 2.5 of my lifetimes. I think that's a good indicator of the level of stability. There's perhaps a 1-in-2 chance of some major event within my lifetime, consider things like the American Revolution, Civil War, or Great Depression to be major events.

Not all of those would wipe out my assets, but I'd say about a 1:5 chance of my assets being neutered or neutralized within my life.

We tend to plan for the common, minor stuff (typo, guy loses $50k), and overlook big, rare events (like the current, entirely predictable pandemic).

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#109

Post by happytoexplain »

qz2 wrote: post #9
ForHackernews wrote: post #5

This is a sad story and a good example of why the much-ballyhooed immutability of cryptocurrency transactions is an anti-feature for the vast majority of users.

If you did this with a bank you’d be up shit creek as well.

Absolutely not - I've had banks reverse my transactions multiple times without even contacting the 3rd party.

Re: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction

#110

Post by beervirus »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #74
beervirus wrote: post #56

Spend your life savings on a bunch of numbers. Act surprised when they evaporate.

While I don't think crypto is the wisest place to vest oneself, I think you could flippantly say this about a lot of financial instruments over the years.

It's one thing if you're "investing" money that you can afford to lose. Gamble it on crypto or blackjack, whatever you like.

But if it's your life savings, put it in an index fund and forget about it for a few decades.

Post reply on HN