There have been several reported cases of people losing their digital assets like Bitcoin mainly because of negligence or actions taken by bad actors. In a recent twist of events, it has been discovered that a gold proponent had lost all of his BTC holdings.
Peter Schiff, the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital and major Gold ‘shiller’ tweeted recently that he had lost all his BTC because of a supposed problem with his Bitcoin wallet. This news resulted in several crypto evangelists coming forth to defend the characteristics of the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
The host of the Peter Schiff show has a reputation for being against Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Schiff has also maintained strongly that no matter what the developments, gold will always reign supreme over Bitcoin. This sentiment was one of the reasons why crypto supporters thought Schiff’s latest story was fabricated. His tweet read:
I just lost all the #Bitcoin I have ever owned. My wallet got corrupted somehow and my password is no longer valid. So now not only is my Bitcoin intrinsically worthless; it has no market value either. I knew owning Bitcoin was a bad idea, I just never realized it was this bad! pic.twitter.com/6SJvDJOZU6
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 19, 2020
The error message on Schiff’s wallet pointed out that there was an issue with decrypting the individual wallet file. Now it is not really confirmed if Schiff actually lost all of his assets but some BTC proponents were having none of it.
Erik Voorhees, the CEO of Shapeshift candidly stated that the mistake was all on Schiff because there was no integral mistake with the Bitcoin wallet. Voorhees claimed that he had helped Schiff set up the wallet and had even asked him to secure it properly.
According to the Shapeshift official, Peter Schiff had actually forgotten his password and was trying to blame the cryptocurrency for no substantial reason. Even Jameson Lopp joined hands with Voorhees in stating that crypto provides financial sovereignty, albeit to users who are careful.
Schiff followed up his original tweet with one saying that the BTC he lost were ‘gifted’ to him. He reiterated that he did not believe in Bitcoin but was rather planning to HODL his assets till ‘Bitcoin sank’. It was understandable as to why the crypto community questioned the authenticity of Schiff’s comments.
The gold bug had made multiple headlines earlier when he claimed that marijuana was more useful than Bitcoin. His logic was that users cannot do anything with BTC but if the same person smokes marijuana, they get high.
Despite the cloud surrounding this event, the issue of cryptocurrency wallet losses has been persistent within the industry. Last year, customers lost almost $145 million in terms of holdings due to the death of Quadriga CX CEO, Gerald Cotten. This was a major reminder to people that they need to be more careful about their private keys and passwords so that they can retrieve their BTC safely.