What are the worst things that can happen to you if you hold cryptocurrencies?
When most of us think about cryptocurrencies, we think about making money, lambos, financial freedom, shit coins, and then the frustration of trying to explain to your friends what shit coins are. People tend to focus on the positives and less on the negatives. I'm a firm believer in life being balanced and with so much positivity coming from cryptos and blockchain there will be negatives as well. I think we should focus equally on these negatives as well, lest we be caught unprepared.
1.) Getting robbed (not hacked) - Pretty self explanatory. Getting robbed in crypto wasn't a thing until recently. That's mostly because the majority of the people involved in cryptocurrencies were nerds, gamers, and sound money financially savvy folks. The more people that become involved, the larger the network grows, and the more people become aware. Unfortunately, the fastest way to get people involved in advanced technology that takes weeks to months to even understand let alone even begin to articulate it intelligently, is to entice people with the opportunities to make money. Yes, you can make a shitload of money from crypto, but a money first mentality is just the type of mentality that many bad actors hold. The type of bad actors that would prefer to rob you instead of earning their crypto.
If you hold any cryptocurrencies, you've probably told atleast a friend or two. They probably have or eventually will tell another friend or two. Although unlikely, the network effect may eventually lead to a very unscrupulous person learning about your new found crypto wealth during the next bull run. That individual may think that taking your crypto from you by force is a far better option than buying it or earning it themselves. I've always been an advocate of physical fitness, self defense, martial arts, and familiarizing yourself with physically uncomfortable scenarios (like fighting and aggressive negotiations). People are less likely to mess with someone who looks like they can handle themselves, and it gives you more options when you are put in an physically uncomfortable situation. Life is all about having options and you want to have as many of them as possible when going through this journey. It might be best to not tell people or tell as few people as possible in regards to the amount of cryptoccurency you hold.
2.) Getting hacked (not robbed) - Pretty self explanatory. Getting hacked in crypto has always been a thing and happens almost everyday in the crypto space. Whether its a Youtuber getting hacked, an ICO getting hacked, or an exchange getting hacked, hacking is happening daily. When you lack morals, princples, a conscience and pair that with good technical aptitude, you get what we call a hacker.
Because some are more technically capable than others, or just plain lazy, it leaves openings in their cryptosecurity. Using simple passwords, sharing your personal email, birthday, address, are all various openings and holes in your cybersecurity protection. Eventually, and perhaps during the next bull run, you will let slip somewhere on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or even in person to a friend who tells a friend who tells another friend who is a hacker that you've recently accumulated new found wealth through cryptocurrency trading and investing. Now, you become a target and these hackers begin to dig. They key log your computer to steal your e-mail password and your exchange passwords. Then, they dig through all your personal information for your name, birth date, and phone number. Next, they call up your phone provider and ask to have your old number deactivated and a new phone they have in possession activated. Remember to always setup 2 factor authentication through the app and also notify your cell phone provider to never reset your phone unless you are physically present in a store with photo ID.
3.) Losing your private keys - If you aren't familiar with private keys, you should go immediately go and research cryptocurrency wallets, what they are, and this should lead you to what private keys are. Private keys are basically the passwords to access your cryptocurrencies. Every blockchain will have it's own wallet for you to store that respective cryptocurrency in, and as a result every blockchain wallet will have a private key that you will need to protect and store. These privates keys are the passwords/keys to access your wallets that can hold thousands and millions of $dollars worth of crypto. The private keys generated for your wallet are only shared with you. There is no duplicate copy of that private key held by someone else or third party. If you lose your private keys, access to that respective wallet is lost forever and will NEVER be able to be restored. That is why storing your private keys are so important, backing up your private keys are important, and not keeping all your private keys in the same location in case they are stolen, lost, burned, or somehow made inaccessible is tantamount to the security of your crypto wealth.
This is why I firmly believe that 3rd party services like DigiPulse (DGPT) will be crucial to the future of cryptosecurity. It allows you to store private and sensitive materials. Whether it's private keys, photos, and or documents, DGPT allows you to store all of this in a decentralized way so that if you were to lose it, it would provide whoever you have documented as the inheritor of this information, access to that information. Because of the decentralization, DigiPulse will never have access or viewability into your private information and is only meant as a service to pass this private information to those you wish.
4.) Getting struck by lightning, hit by a car, having your plane crash, heart attack, going through alzheimers, and or dementia - These are all unforeseen circumstances that can shock and surpise any of us at any point in our adult life. Hopefully none of us are lucky enough to experience any of these events but needless to say, some of us will. If you have a family, partner, and or loved ones that you would like to inherit your cryptocurrency, they will be unable to do so unless they know where your hardware wallets, paper wallets, and hot wallets are held. Then, they will need to know how to input the private keys to those respective wallets. This doesn't include the knowledge of how to send and receive cryptocurrencies or how to cash them out into fiat.
Assuming you've done all that, you still probably want to ensure that there are safety precautions set to ensure that the movement of those keys will not effect your inheritors. This is where digital asset inheritance services like DigiPulse (DGPT) will also be beneficial. DigiPulse (DGPT) allows you to setup inheritors to your private keys so that if some extenuating circumstance or event were to happen that would not allow you to convey this information such as your private key information in time, they will do it for you. This way you can sleep at night. Lord knows how many times you've tried to educate your wife, brother, sister, parents, and children about the importance of cryptocurrency security and private keys.........
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Remember guys, stay fit, stay mentally sharp, and give yourself as many options as possible. Unless you are a public figure, it's probably best to never talk about what crypto you hold, learn to defend yourself physically/digitally, and lastly, buy DigiPulse and use their crypto asset inheritance service!
Till next time!
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