Has Anyone Seen My Private Key?
By: Willie Tan
Tags: ICO, Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Restore — my private key

About a year ago, while I was in between jobs, I was offered an opportunity to write for an online crypto currency portal. The payment for the articles I wrote to me was made in BTC and since the amount wasn’t much. I had all my BTC stored in Breadwallet on my iPad. At the time of creating the new wallet, I was staying at my ex in-law’s place.

Fast forward a few months, I got a job half way across the globe. I was excited to go. Packed all my stuff including my iPad but I have completely forgotten about my wallet key. I thought I had it stashed somewhere safe in my then brother-in-law house, it should be safe. If my iPad got stolen or crashes I should be able to get the key back.

Unfortunately, my iPad did crashed and I had it repaired. All the information was lost and it didn’t have backup. Immediately I called my then brother in law to help me search for my paper key, which I believed was somewhere in the living room. He couldn’t find it and I thought, well that is okay. When I get back I could search for it myself, there is no need to worry.

Fast forward a few more months, family drama ensued. It was not possible for me to go to his house ever again. At the time of writing this article, I have to accepted that my coins are lost forever.

It can really be disheartening for anyone who ever lost their wallets and keys. For me, it feels like I got run over by a bicycle. I lost merely 0.3 bitcoins which I earned from writing articles. I imagine others who lost more than I did would feel like they got run over by a car or worse, a bus or a truck.

Being the (woeful) one who lost his key and wallet, I couldn’t help but think that this key and wallet system is inherently flawed. Maybe I am the one to be blamed for not safeguarding my own key. For whatever reasons, losing or misplacing one’s key is very easy. I imagine I’m not the only unfortunate one with a lost key. Millions of other may have walked in my shoes.

Once the key is lost, the crypto it contains is lost forever. My 0.3 bitcoin is now floating somewhere in the virtual world along with James Howell’s 7500 bitcoins which he accidentally lost when he threw his old hard disk away. A study shows that around 4 million bitcoins have been lost due to the lost key. If we estimate bitcoins value at USD 10,000 each, the value of lost bitcoins stands at USD 40 billion.

There are many methods which we may use to keep our keys safe. The most widespread method is probably writing it on a piece of paper and keep that piece of paper somewhere. We call that a paper key. As a matter of fact, paper key is terribly insecure because paper is highly perishable. It can be easily misplaced, discarded, burnt, torn or destroyed by a myriad of reasons. I am sure many of us are not taking sufficient precautions to keep our keys safe.

I recounted my misfortune to a close friend of mine and he helped me to search for my paper key but his efforts were in vain. It was a subject that we brought up a lot in our conversations. That was the inspiration that brought out the idea of using the blockchain system to keep the keys safe. Infinitus is a real solution to a very real problem the crypto community is facing. It’s a revolutionary yet simple approach to keep millions of keys safe.