Author: The popular economist and well-known nocoiner, Peter Schiff, has said that he’s lost all of his bitcoins because of a forgotten software. He took his rant to Twitter, outlining that the lost bitcoin has no market value, on top of having no intrinsic value as well.
Peter Schiff Loses His Bitcoins
Peter Schiff is a well-known economist, as well as a frequent guest on national news and an author. However, he has also chosen to take a very definitive stance on Bitcoin. He’s said on multiple occasions that he doesn’t believe it to have any intrinsic value and that it is worthless.
Today, Schiff took it to Twitter to share that he lost access to his bitcoin holdings. He revealed that his wallet “got corrupted somehow” and that his password is “no longer valid.”
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 My wallet got corrupted somehow and my password is no longer valid.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
Now, if the entire thing sounds particularly ridiculous, it’s probably because it is. Schiff claims that he didn’t forget his password but that his wallet somehow malfunctioned and doesn’t accept it anymore.
Naturally, he doesn’t disclose which wallet service he has been using nor any other information on the matter.
Lost Passwords And The Lack Of Value
There has been a serious debate within the cryptocurrency community for a long time on the matter of security. Losing your private keys means you lose your bitcoins. It’s that simple. There is no way to recover them and there’s no central authority that can bring them back for you or give new ones.
That’s the trade-off that decentralization comes with. But there are plenty of things that one can do to guarantee that his private keys remain safe.
In any case, there is absolutely no correlation between the way bitcoins are stored and whether or not the cryptocurrency has any intrinsic value. That much is clear.
On the matter of Schiff’s case, the entire thing sounds rather strange, to say the least. For once, it’s probably a good idea to contact the customer support of the wallet and see what the problem may be.
It’s also possible that the wallet provider got hacked, but that’s something completely unrelated to Bitcoin and it’s overall decentralized nature.
Update: Schiff Claims He Never Had The Wallet’s Private Key
Two days after, Schiff replies to Eric Voorhees, CEO of ShapeShift, as the last is said to be the one who opened Schoff’s un-accessed Bitcoin wallet.
“Eric that is not what happened. You created the wallet, and the only thing you asked me to do was to select a password to unlock it. I did. That same password worked every time I used it until Saturday. You never told me about the seed phrase. I can’t lose what I never had!,” According to Schiff.
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