Tag: how to secure my bitcoin

How I Got My Bitcoins Back – Cryptonomics

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I told you on my last episode, I lost my bitcoins back in March 2017. After 20 months of no movement on the case, many emotions like frustration, despair, regret, and peace, I finally got them back.

Let me tell you about about my journey battling the support team and Telegram admins, and finally getting a positive result.

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Bye Bye Bitcoins

I lost the bitcoins. They’d locked the account, they’d deleted my support request. It looked like there was no hope. I started posting on the Bleutrade thread on Bitcointalk forum, but it seemed that the staff hadn’t accessed it since they started the thread. I told my story on there, saying I hadn’t got my bitcoins back after a week. One fellow named 1369 he questioned my credibility, considering I didn’t have a posting history on Bitcointalk.

I overcame his initial skepticism and he said he would try to help. He’d had a really good experience with Bleutrade, so good that he had some connections with the staff. He said he figured somehow my case had just slipped through the cracks, and he’d try to get them to do something about it. So I’m grateful to 1369 that he tried.

But still, nothing, no response, no emails, no concern from the staff about the bad reputation that their exchange was developing.

Changing winds

With no apparent recourse, I gave up on it. As traders might say, I reached capitulation. I thought there was no chance of getting anything out of these guys. If they wanted to keep my money, they would.

That changed a couple of weeks ago when I went back on the Bitcointalk forum and 1369 was saying that Bleutrade had opened a Telegram group, and now would be the end of the bad talk against the exchange – people could now obtain answers to their basic support questions quite quickly.

It so happened that in September 2018, Bleutrade became regulated by the Maltese state, which might have forced it to be a little stricter with certain practices. It also meant that I probably had some recourse if I didn’t get my money, as Bleutrade probably wouldn’t want to risk its licence.

A new hope…ish

I went to Bleutrade’s new site and was surprised to find that I could log in. I could see the old transactions there, two deposits and a withdrawal, which had been cancelled, but the funds had never been returned to the account. I made a note of them, and put in a support request. The next day I noticed that I had again been locked out of the account. Great.

I went on the Telegram group and asked a couple of times what was going on. The first two times I received no response. When I tagged the admins in a post, the guy said that the support team would get to it, and said that I already knew what was going on. I was a little confused, how would I know what was going on? He said it was being handled internally. I said “It sounds like you’re saying Bleutrade has taken my money.” He said don’t be silly, Bleutrade has never taken anyone’s money, and then accused me of slander, and attempting to sow discord.

I just imagine this situation. My friend calls me on the weekend and asks “Hey bro what are you up to tonight – you want to go to the bar and hoist a few?”

Naturally I would respond: “Nah mate I’m pretty busy, I’ve got this great new hobby, I like to sow discord in random crypto Telegram groups.” Seriously?

I considered pointing out to the admin that my statement was just an opinion, and therefore not slanderous, and his statement accusing me of slander, was actually slanderous. I thought better of it. I thought, this guy is going to keep prodding me until I explode in the chat so it looks like I’m the bad guy, and then they can block me, and likely again avoid returning my funds.

Fortunately I PM’d another admin, he said I’d receive a response that day. I said thanks.

Two criminal masterminds

To my surprise, I did get a response that day. The weird and incredible irony was that, all this time I thought they were thieves for taking my bitcoins – but they stated reason they took them was that, they believed I had stolen the bitcoins. I’d deposited They said when they didn’t get any support request from me, they decided it was proof that the source of my funds was indeed illegitimate.

Of course, I did put in a support request. I went through my old records and found the text, date and link. But besides that, when you lock a dude out of his account, wouldn’t you think to like, contact him?

At the time, it looked like one big scam, but according to them, they were merely following prudent anti-money laundering procedures.

The real story…?

My best guess of what actually happened is that in 2017, a rogue staff member decided to pilfer my funds and cover his tracks by deleting the support request and confirming a red flag on the transactions to mark it as illegitimate. The exchange continued and eventually gained the Maltese licence, which put them under greater scrutiny, so when I had the chance to protest, they decided to colour in this little story of funds marked stolen.

In their version of the story, they never contacted me to ask what was going on, and just assumed their own customer to be a criminal. I’m not entirely sure which is worse.

A happy ending

The happy ending is, they asked me to confirm my identity and explain the source of the funds. I did so, and they said okay we will unlock your account and the funds. They did it, and I got my bitcoins. How about that! So despite all my criticisms of Bleutrade, I’m grateful for what they did. They could have drawn out the process and made it difficult, but they gave me back my bitcoins, and even despite the recent downturn in the market, they’re still worth a lot more than when I lost them.

So there are some important lessons to be learned here:

  1. Never give up. You don’t have to hold on to your bitterness or your disillusionment, but you don’t have to give up.
  2. Never assume malice when incompetence will suffice.
  3. Never use Bleutrade.

Thank you

Thank for reading, listening and watching. Thanks for sharing the video with your friends so they can soak up the crypto-goodness.

Thanks for liking Cryptonomics on Facebook, subscribing to Cryptonomics on YouTube and Cryptonomics on Anchor. And thanks for being cool!

Stay grateful.

You can listen and subscribe on Anchor and other podcasting services here:

Cryptonomics – How I Got My Bitcoins Back

Money is Sacred – How I lost my bitcoins – Cryptonomics

by  on  in Cryptonomics • 0 Comments

A lot of people believe that money is evil, or the love of money is the root of all evil. I don’t believe that. In fact, I think the opposite. Money is actually sacred – it’s this potent condensed form of energy which can be used to benefit people. Money is powerful, and it’s beneficial to show it respect. Let me tell you a story about what happens when you don’t show respect for money, about how I lost my bitcoins.

Thanks so much to everyone sharing the videos and podcasts. I really like it when you do that!

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Losing My Bitcoins

In March 2017 I was living in Guadalajara, seems like a lifetime ago. Bitcoin was around $1200. Dash was around $40. I’d been learning a lot about Dash and I thought, this is the future. They’re focused on UX, they’ll have treasury funding for important projects.

I’d also just seen Dash rocket up from around $15, and I felt the fear of missing out. I hastily decided to sell my remaining bitcoins for Dash.

I looked up an exchange, Bleutrade. They had a trading pair with Dash on there. I deposited my remaining bitcoins, about 1/3 of my net worth at the time. Thus, my first key mistakes.

Simple Lessons

Lesson: pause, reflect, meditate, breathe, before I make any financial decision. I might miss an opportunity by taking a step back, it’s true. But I can make many more mistakes by being hasty.

When I use a new exchange, or even use an old exchange for the first time in months, it’s beneficial to check their reputation. Are there many complaints on the web saying that they’ve been waiting a long time for withdrawals? That’s a red flag. I make a small deposit, trade and withdrawal first, to confirm their trustworthiness.

No Response

After I’d put in the money, I realised that they didn’t have the trading pair I wanted. So I withdrew the bitcoins. I waited an hour, and the withdrawal still hadn’t processed. Okay, that happens on some exchanges, sometimes they need to pull funds from cold storage. I put in a support request and waited.

After a week, they still hadn’t replied. Eventually they locked me out of my account and the support request was deleted. Ah. Oh dear. Oh no oh no oh no. I’d lost 1/3 of my net worth.

So it looked like they’d straight ripped me off, shut me down, shut me out, and in crypto, with an exchange in a foreign country, I had no apparent recourse.

Around that time, a couple of other misfortunes occurred. I was using my phone in public after dark and it was plucked from my hands by a moto-thief. A friend was unable to fulfill an agreement and I lost my payment for a new laptop.

Capitulation

I started thinking a lot about it, trying to come to grips with what I’d lost, my own hand in it. Just a week before I’d read some story about someone using a phony ATM in Latin America and losing thousands of dollars. I thought there’s no way I’d be that careless. Obviously the universe had other plans. I absolutely had been that careless, and I’d paid the price.

I thought, I could have spent that money on anything. I could have gone to Las Vegas and ordered tables, champagne, taken trips around Mexico or the world, given it to charity, to a friend in need. I could have blown it all on trifles and I’d still be better off. But I hadn’t, I’d kept the money to myself, like the archetype of an old miser in his one room shack, tying his pants with twine because he didn’t want to buy a belt, dying alone, a millionaire, very rich and very dead.

Then one night I was going to sleep, probably still with some emotional turmoil. I had a vision. A figure in a white hooded robe appeared in the darkness and started to speak. It said they were running things behind the scenes.

“We know you perceive what we’re doing as bad. It is the revelation of a spiritual lesson. Some of what you have has been taken from you, so you can better learn the value of what remains.”

Then the figure was gone.

I came to grips with losing the money, and I learnt this lesson… Being respectful of money does mean saving it, it also means spending it to improve the quality of life for yourself and those around you.

The price of hospitality

When my parents last visited me in Guadalajara, we went to a little kitchen and got breakfast. One of the old men there, don Carlos Robles, paid for our meal, just to show my parents some Mexican hospitality, to welcome them to the city and country.

My parents were amazed, they’d never experienced such hospitality in their lives, that someone you’d never met would buy you a meal just so you could feel at home. Old fashioned Mexican hospitality. For the small price of 150 pesos, he’d changed my parents’ ideas of hospitality forever. Maybe you know now what I mean when I say: money is sacred.

When I enter the temple, I take off my shoes and hat, to show respect for the gravity of what is taking place. When I pick up a knife, I become present, because of the potential for injury. Likewise, when I touch silver, I first put on my gloves. People die for money, people kill for it. The proper understanding and correct intention can use it to create and sustain life, to bring joy and health. Yes my friends, money is sacred. When I touch it, I will remember its power and wonder: is this the most blissful use of this potent energy?

I should note that I did actually get my bitcoins back from Bleutrade, it just took a long time – about 20 months. You’ll hear more about that in the next episode.

Shout outs

I’d like to give a shout out to Milos, who sometimes comments on the Cryptonomics Facebook page. A month ago he left this review:

I love Kurt’s videos. He constantly publishes interesting and substantive content, mixed with high quality editing and thought provoking topics. I look forward to seeing his influence grow in the Fintech sphere over the next few market cycles. Cheers!

Milos sometimes disagrees with what I say, and even so he supports his positions with reason and with respect. Thanks Milos.

Thanks again to everyone who shares these posts, the videos and podcasts. That’s really cool of you!

I’ll leave you with this gentle blessing: may all your lessons hard-learnt, be well-learnt. Stay grateful my friends.

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Cryptonomics – Money is Sacred – How I lost all my bitcoins