200+ Bitcoin Gone! Is Your Bitcoin Secure?

You meet some interesting people at Bitcoin events, with amazing stories of boom and bust. Early adopters, traders, coders, hackers, gamblers, startup CEOs and newbies all mingle together sharing about their experiences with Bitcoin.

This was definitely the scenario at a 2016 Bitcoin halving party that I attended. Of all the people I spoke with that night, there was one whose story really hit home hard. This guy had accumulated more that 200 Bitcoin, paying between $15 and $30 each.

When the price started to skyrocket, it looked like his relatively small investment was about to pay off big time. The problem was that he had his Bitcoin at the Mt Gox exchange and when he tried to get them out, he couldn't. This was not merely a temporary inconvenience, he never got them out. Mt Gox collapsed and his Bitcoin were among the casualties. 200+ Bitcoin gone! His investment of a few thousand dollars, that had grown to be worth more than $200,000 was wiped out.

To his credit, rather than give up on cryptocurrency, he had started working for a Bitcoin startup. While I admired his courage, I couldn't imagine what a tough pill it must have been to swallow.

How secure is your Bitcoin? Could you lose it all too? When you have your Bitcoin at an exchange, you can't be sure because you don't control your private key, they do. If the exchange gets hacked, your Bitcoin can be stolen. If the company behind the exchange collapses, you may not be able to get your Bitcoin out.

To keep your Bitcoin safe, make sure that you control your private key, and can access your funds whenever you need to. The easiest way to do this is by using a secure storage device, such as a Trezor or Ledger Nano.