Log of events leading to my stupid loss of Bitcoin SV coins.
- I discovered the Bitcoin SV in my Coinbase account. The only option they provided for this coin was to send it somewhere.
- I wanted to convert the coins to BTC in my blockchain.com account. But they don't support BSV.
- I found a site, changenow, that would convert the coins.
- Foolishly, I did not test the site. When it asked for the receiving address, I apparently entered blockchains address. The coins were sent directly to blockchain.com without converting to BTC.
- Since blockchain.com doesn't handle BSV, they never received them. The coins were in limbo on the Blockchain SV transaction chain.
- I searched the internet trying to find a solution to this problem. I could not find a simple solution.
- I contacted blockchain.com, describing the problem. Their customer support responded with a description of the situation and several suggestions. Their response was excellent.
- Based on one of their suggestions, I decided to use a desktop wallet that supported Bitcoin SV. By creating the wallet with the 12 secret words from my blockchain.com wallet, I hoped the desktop wallet would retrieve the coins.
- Recognizing the risk, I basically emptied my blockchain.com wallet.
- Since I had used Electrum, I decided to use their SV wallet.
- I found it, downloaded Electrum-BSV-4.0.4.exe, installed it. and elected to create the wallet by importing the Bitcoin SV secret words.
- After I entered the 12 words, the program failed to connect to the internet, so I tried again, and it failed again.
- I moved on to atomcwallet.exe. The wallet it created had its own 12 words, so I restored a wallet with the 12 words. My coins did not appear so once again I moved on.
- My next choice was Exodus on my Windows 10 computer.
- I created my wallets using the 12 words from my blockchain.com account. Effectively I created a clone of that account. I entered the words manually.
- I did a refresh in Exodus and the BSV coins appeared.
- Exodus has an exchange feature where you can convert one coin for another. There is a fee for this.
- Since I had pretty much emptied my blockchain.com before starting the process, I didn't have enough to cover the exchange fee.
- I transferred a small amount of BTC from Coinbase to cover the fee.
- I used the program to exchange the BSV for BTC. The exchange was going to take a while, so I closed the program.
- When I returned a few hours later I could see that the exchange had occurred, but the BTC had been sent somewhere.
- I was confused and ultimately contacted the Exodus support team.
- A few hours later the rest of my BTC disappeared.
I worked for a while with the Exodus support team. Despite their excellent support, ultimately the coins were stolen in step 12 and not recoverable.
I made two mistakes as indicated in steps 4 and 12. In step 4, I should have tested the conversion with a small amount so I would understand the process. Had I done so, none of the rest would have been necessary. In step 12, I did not find the real Electrum SV product, but one apparently designed to steal your coins.
Ultimately, I did find an excellent desktop wallet, Exodus, with a great support team. I'll be using them in the future. I also learned more about crypto currencies and blockchain during the process. It's too bad the tuition was so dammed high.
