$ 170,000: Bitcoin investor fails to back up recovery password, loses access to Blockchain Wallet funds

Kerem Albayrak

, a resident of Istanbul, Turkey, claims to have lost access to $ 170,000 in digital currency, since he has not correctly backed up his recovery phrase on his cryptocurrency portfolio.

In a Reddit

to send

, Albayrak explained in detail what happened. He first noticed that he bought an iMac for his new office and created a new one

blockchain

portfolio so you can transfer your funds from an offline portfolio (which said to "scare" him because he seemed to have technical problems).

After opening his new wallet, Albayrak said he went on vacation and when he returned, many people started telling him that his iMac was too big and took up a lot of space. Thus, the Turkish citizen brought the computer back to the shop from where he had bought it. When asked if he could exchange it with a MacBook (recommended by his colleagues), the store representative said they do not trade and that they should first return the iMac.

Improper wallet backup

Reportedly, the store employee told him that he only had 4 hours left to return it, as the company's 15-day return policy was about to expire. Albayrak said that he then rushed home to pack his iMac and quickly returned it to the store, without checking and saving the password correctly and SEED on his wallet.

As explained by Albayrak:

My wallet was just transferred to a Blockchain wallet created on iMac after I had an accident with an offline wallet and I was scared. I used to [an] automatically generates the Apple password without iCloud to back up the keychain. During the creation [the password]I took an iMac screenshot of the recovery phrase which is now also gone.

Hard disk formatted

After returning the iMac and returning home, the business man realized at night that he had just returned the computer without transferring the screenshot of his generated password to a device or e-mail to which he could still log in. So he called Apple to see if anyone could help him.

Albayrak also said that he returned to the store (where he had returned the iMac) 2 hours before opening to hope to take the delivery van, which usually brings the products to China where they are manufactured. However, after not being able to track down the van, Albayrak entered the shop and asked the manager if his computer was still there.

The manager said he was still at the store, but as part of the standard return policy procedures, the iMac hard drive had been formatted, which meant that Albayrak's recovery phrase and password had disappeared.

Importance of properly backed up portfolios

Expressing his frustration at what happened and reminding people that it is very important to back up their portfolios, the Istanbul resident wrote:

It's not a joke. You do not realize it will happen until it happens that it's not that guy in my position. Copy your backup codes and protect your wallet … it's not a good feeling. It's not even about losing 170K … it's about losing a wallet with lots of money in BTC. It's there but you can not use it. When I start to see that the price goes up when it will piss me off.

In particular, Albayrak offered a 40% reward to the person who can help him find a way or "give" [him] an idea "how it can do" restoration [his] wallet."