Two cases of old leeks losing their private keys

As an old leeks, actually losing the private key is intolerable. In the blockchain world, the private key must be kept well. Of course, it is not just a simple safekeeping, but also to create an index for later tracking. And it was because I did not create a good index, plus other reasons, that led to the loss of two private keys, but fortunately, now I have found one, the other has been completely lost, and I plan to continue to slowly look for it later, but the hope is slim.

Case 1

This is a private key containing 300 nests. I got it when I participated in the Babbitt Forum event. At that time, the price of nest was still very cheap and rarely received attention. Therefore, as long as you download their software during the event and leave your address under the event post, you can get 300 nests. Maybe nest was not too popular at that time, so the official later carried out a second wave of activities, but the number of coins was reduced to 100 nests. Currently, 300 nests are worth about 400 yuan.

Because there are so many activities in the cryptocurrency circle, I didn't pay much attention to it, so I just copied the mnemonic phrase onto a piece of paper. Later, my phone ran out of storage space, so I deleted the software. Now it's been a year and a half, and I can't find the piece of paper because I have too many pieces of paper with mnemonics. But I tried them one by one, but to no avail.

Fortunately, I searched on my phone to see if I had transferred the data from my phone to my computer for storage, and I found the trace:

This is a message I sent to my computer using WeChat. It has not been deleted. The words starting with PGP appear in it, indicating that it was encrypted using PGP software. I have mentioned this before in other articles. If you use WeChat to transmit private information, try to use PGP software. The mobile phone software is "APG", which can transmit private keys in an encrypted manner.

After using the software to decrypt, you can see the private key and finally find your nest coin.

Personal inspiration: When backing up, you need to do a paper backup, and also remember the wallet, date, currency type, and the beginning of the coin address to facilitate tracing later. In addition, if you use a mobile phone to back up mnemonics or private keys, then the best way is to use encryption software such as PGP to encrypt and transmit the encrypted information, so that the information can be saved. In addition, unless it is absolutely necessary, do not clear the chat history to prevent it from being found later.

Case 2

The second one is 500 DOS. Of course, I got 500 by participating in the event before. Now it is estimated that its value may be close to 1,000 yuan. This one cannot be found at the moment.

DOS is a token based on erc20. It was lying well in my Ethereum wallet. I don’t know what happened. In order to experience Binance’s public chain and decentralized exchange binancedex, I cross-chained DOS on Binance. However, one bad thing about Binance is that it requires a computer to use, which caused this inconvenience.

First of all, when registering Binance public chain dex, it was in the early stage, so it could only be stored in the keystore. So to put it simply, I downloaded the keystore and saved it on the computer. There should be 24 mnemonics here at the time. I remember that I copied them on paper, but I don’t remember much now, because most of the mnemonics I have are 12, and there are a few that are 24. As a result, I tried it and it prompted an error, so I guess it was lost.

The keystore on the computer is actually very embarrassing. When I opened it, the keystore file felt no different from other keystore files. After a long time, I might have treated it as the keystore of other currencies and imported it into other wallets. I found that the number of coins was 0, so I thought it was useless and deleted it. As for whether there is a backup, I have not found it now, so it is considered lost.

Now when I look at the keystore download record from last year, the file name is still displayed, but the file has been prompted to be moved, so it cannot be found. At the same time, I searched the records of that day in the mobile phone, but found no transfer records. This is relatively tragic.

Later I remembered that I should have imported the Binance Chain wallet into the Mai Wallet once, but I encountered several wallet upgrades of the Mai Wallet. The most recent one, which was after the wallet upgrade this year, the previous digital currency wallet disappeared, causing my wallet software to become a new wallet, and the Binance Chain was no longer displayed in the mobile wallet.

As for my personal revelation: the keystore formats of many currencies are very similar and universal. That is to say, if you import the Ethereum keystore into BTM, it is actually possible. However, there is a problem in the keystore download process. The file name often does not indicate the currency type, and most of them only indicate the creation time.

In addition, saving in the keystore is not very convenient. Even if it is saved, you will need a password when you want to use it in the future. Therefore, unless it is a wallet that you use frequently, if you want to save a certain currency for a long time, it is not recommended to use the keystore method. If possible, try to use a private key or mnemonic phrase.

Important files downloaded to the computer should generally be archived to prevent confusion over time and the tragedy of accidental deletion.

For mobile wallet software, do not update it casually unless it is absolutely necessary, because some wallets may have a major update after a long time, which will cause the wallet database in the mobile phone to be lost or unable to read. For example, the new version of the wallet may use a new way of storing private keys or mnemonics, which is incompatible with the old version, or there is a certain version of the wallet in the middle that is compatible, but if you directly perform a major version update, it is still quite dangerous (the wallet database of Maizi Wallet is wallet.db, which exists in the mobile phone system. Even if it is backed up, it is difficult to open. I have tried it before. Of course, some Ethereum keystores can be read from the db file, and some wallets cannot be read directly. Part of the file content is encrypted). At this time, it is actually quite tragic, so you must think twice when updating the wallet software.

Finally, the most crucial point is that for some coins, even if they are given by others and are worthless at the time, they must be kept well. In case one day their value suddenly increases several times and you cannot find the private key mnemonic, it would be very tragic.