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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
"In early 2017, he had just over 6,000 Bitcoin in one account, but he feared it may be too easy for a hacker to access," the Irish Times noted this month. "He decided to spread his wealth across 12 new accounts and transferred exactly 500 Bitcoin, worth almost €4.5m, into each of them."
The keys to those accounts were written on a piece of paper and stashed with Collins' fishing rod for safekeeping.
But later that year, Collins was cuffed and jailed for five years for drug possession, as dealers are prone to do. Believing his tenant was no longer able to make rent, Collins' landlord emptied his house and threw out, among other things, the pot peddler's fishing gear.
As it turns out, within the aluminum case of the weed-slinger's fishing rod was the sheet of A4 paper on which the digital keys to 12 Bitcoin wallets was scribbled. The paper was, among Collins' other belongings, sent to a dump in Galway and, it is believed, ultimately incinerated at a facility in either Germany or China.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday February 26 2020, @03:31PM
Exchanges are a special case - basically you've *already* given your money to someone else (the exchange) that's continuously making transactions. If their computers are compromised, or if anyone working there is corrupt... well, you should have been more careful about who you gave your money to for safekeeping.
What's the world coming to when you can't trust random people running an online money laundering operation not to steal your money? (Okay, maybe not *all* exchanges are money laundering operations. But there's not really a whole lot of other value to be had in letting someone else store your bitcoin for you.)
So long as you keep your "password" secret, money that's actually in your bitcoin wallet can't be stolen. Of course, malware on your computer, phone, or whatever else you're using to make bitcoin payments could steal the password, and then your money. And unlike stolen credit card or bank account credentials, there's not currently much chance of getting your stolen bitcoin back.