The Dutch family who sold all their worldly possessions to go all-in on bitcoin are now happily living in Portugal (among other exotic places), sitting pretty on their fortune of digital gold which is being kept safely offline on multiple cold storage wallets.
Didi Taihuttu and family
Selling It All for the Bitcoin Dream
Didi Taihuttu, his wife and three children liquidated all their assets to buy as much bitcoin as they could in 2017 when the BTC price was just US$900. They won’t say exactly how much they have, but let’s do some rough maths. Say they invested just US$50,000 at $900/BTC. That’s 55.56 bitcoins multiplied by US$50,000 (approximate worth of bitcoin today), equating to about $2.8 million.
Decentralised Hidden Treasure vs Centralised Storage
The family stores almost three-quarters of its crypto fortune in secret vaults across four continents. The remaining wealth is kept liquid for more precarious bets, day trading, and risky GIGO (go-in-go-out) shorter-term investments. Taihuttu says he has two hiding spots in Europe, another two in Asia, one in South America and a sixth in Australia. The goal for the near future is to have a stash on each continent across the world. Taihuttu aims to do this so it is easier to access his holdings when and if he needs to.
There are, of course, other options for storing your cryptocurrency safely offline. Centralised vaults like Coinbase-owned Xapo offer high levels of security, but Taihuttu says it feels too centralised to him: “I prefer to live in a decentralised world where I have the responsibility to protect my capital.”
To learn more about what’s been dubbed the “Bitcoin Family”, follow them on their YouTube channel and Instagram page.
Dallas2626 posted a sad but not uncommon story on Reddit this week about how he lost US$10,000 from his MetaMask wallet from a scammer in Discord using the fake WalletConnect app.
Rule#1 in crypto: Never ever give out your private key or seed phrase or enter it to connect to a website or App that you don’t recognise.
Rule #2 in crypto: If someone messages you directly offering to “help” you, be warned – they are more than likely a scammer.
Rule #3 in crypto: Always double- and triple-check that the website (or app) you are on is legitimate by cross-checking the URL (or any addresses you are importing) and compare it to the project’s official channels – website, Medium, Twitter, or Telegram.
If you need a #4: Don’t trade crypto on your phone!
For poor Dallas2626 it is too late, but sharing his story will hopefully help others dodge a bullet next time a scammer strikes.
Here’s a common scenario: you’re a crypto noob who invests in a project that you don’t fully understand. Looking for help, you go to the official group chat on Discord or Telegram to ask some questions. You might post something like: “Hey, can anyone please help me, I am new at this, how can I unstake my XYZ Tokens so they appear back in my MetaMask wallet?” A scammer who is trawling through these group chats all day every day, looking for victims, sees the perfect opportunity ripe for the taking.
The scammer sends you a message, which appears to be legit because they have even gone to the trouble of adding Admin or Help Desk to their name, details that help your brain overlook the first red-flag warning sign – they have direct-messaged you first.
Because you are so focused on fixing your problem, you thank them for helping you and let them lead you step-by-step down the path where you send them all your crypto. This usually involves you visiting some URL link they have sent you and/or entering your seed phrase or private key into a dodgy app or website that looks similar to the real thing (often with the same logos and graphic design, etc) except it’s not the official project, it’s a scam. It’s over so fast that before you realise what’s happened your wallet is empty and your crypto is gone.
Screenshot posted on Reddit: Dallas2626 and The Scammer
Do Not Give Anyone Your Private Keys
Scammers like the one who ensnared Dallas2026 often use the fake WalletConnect app. WalletConnect scams are everywhere. There is even a fake app in the Google Play store using the real WalletConnect logo. Some scam sites even have big red warnings, as the real WalletConnect site does.
WalletConnect Scam Warning
WalletConnect does not have a support team, so anyone contacting you purporting to be from WalletConnect is by definition a scammer. If you need to report a scammer site, WalletConnect has a Report Phishing Page where you can report a scam site URL to be blacklisted.
Watch the Crypto Wallet Scams – Fake WalletConnect Scam video below to further educate yourself.
If you have been scammed, you can try contacting Reclaim Crypto from the official WalletConnect website. With all the scams around WalletConnect though, honestly it could be better to just use MetaMask, which is quite a popular choice for crypto. Stay safe crypto kids!
For more on other types of crypto attacks, Crypto News Australia recently reported on “The Dusting Attack”.
A retired US truck driver has retrieved 10 million DOGE thanks to a wallet recovery service that helped him step by step to recover his fortune.
The man contacted KeychainX, a crypto wallet recovery service launched in 2017. He had stacked a massive amount of DOGE in 2015 for about US$1,500, now worth over US$3 million.
The only problem was that the PIN to the man’s Android wallet was 12 digits long, which the company viewed as nearly impossible to crack. Step by step, KeychainX started asking the man for important numbers, like the year of his birth. From there, the team analysed the wallets used to assess the type of wallet encryption that was deployed.
A Nail-Biting Moment
The most difficult part for the recovery company was to ensure the funds were moved safely. The team said the synching could take several days as the stack dated back six years, so extra precautions were taken to ensure the funds could safely arrive at the destination.
KeychainX CEO Robert Rhodin said the truck driver was so delighted with the service that he invited the team for a drink on him the next time he’s in town.
Losing a PIN in your wallet isn’t bad. If you manage to open it years later, it could be a life-changing amount. It happened this time.
Robert Rhodin, CEO, KeychainX
KeychainX says it has recovered more than 100 wallets from mobile, hardware and software wallets in the past six months. The company is the only publicly registered company in the industry, as other wallet recovery services operate under pseudonyms.
There is a widespread view that 20 percent of bitcoins are lost forever; we believe these are bitcoins waiting to be discovered.
ETH is on the move again as it climbs steadily back up towards the $3,000 mark in its longest ever continuous winning streak. According to data from Coinbase, it is up over 43 percent, achieving daily price gains over the past 12 days straight.
ETH daily chart. Source: TradingView
This price gain is leading up to the ETH London Hard Fork which will happen on Aug 5. The upgrade has been long-awaited and highly anticipated following April 15’s Berlin hard fork, which at the time pushed the price of ETH to its all-time high.
The London upgrade is meant to complement the Ethereum 2.0 transition that will change Ethereum from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model. This may see ether becoming a store-of-value as it moves to become a deflationary asset, like Bitcoin.
#Ethereum has notched a 12-day winning streak, the longest ever
The IOMAP indicator reveals that $ETH is sitting on strong support while facing the last 2 key levels of on-chain resistance on its path to $3k once again
A fortune in Ethereum valued at over half a billion dollars is on the move as crypto whales relocate their bags of ETH. On July 30, blockchain tracker Whale Alert sighted a series of massive transactions in which large Ethereum holders moved 237,419 ETH in just over 10 hours.
Ether trading volumes have been higher than Bitcoin in the first half of this year as institutions invest heavily. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap with a current trading volume of over US$300 billion.
For now, HODLers are enjoying the ride:
Starting to get a bit worried, my eth has been up for 12 days and doesn't appear to be going down.
The funds will help defray production costs for the first feature-length documentary about Ethereum, which includes interviews with creator Vitalik Buterin. It has a cool NFT movie poster too:
excited to share my latest work, one of the first movie posters as an NFT- for none other than the first feature-length, crowdfunded (@viamirror) documentary on Ethereum. @EthereumFilm
Data from on-chain analysis firm Glassnode shows there has been a 30 percent increase in active Bitcoin (BTC) addresses. However, BTC has only risen above the US$40,000 mark a handful of times.
#Bitcoin has seen a resurgence in Active Entities over the past week, rising by 30% from 250k to 325k active entities per day.
This degree of activity was sustained in July 2020 when $BTC prices were around $11.3k in Q2-2020.
The Bitcoin network (BTC) has recently seen a notable increase in active addresses per day. According to Glassnode, in one week active addresses increased from 250,000 to 325,000.
This is the biggest surge recorded since the number of active Bitcoin wallets dropped 41 percent from 425,000 in January 2021 to below 245,000 addresses in early July.
Alongside a significant turnaround in active Bitcoin users, a one-year record volume of BTC outflows has been hit, comparable to peak outflows seen in November 2020. This is a bullish signal indicating that BTC has been bought on exchanges and is being moved to wallets for safekeeping.
Bitcoin (BTC) has only touched the US$40,000 mark a handful of times since its $63,000 high in April, and has since been ranging between $32,000 and $38,000. Recent rumours of Amazon accepting bitcoin, along with the positive talks between Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk at the B word Conference, spiked it up to $42,000 but to no avail, as the price dropped back down under $40,000.
Bitcoin Millionaires Hit New High
During this time, bitcoin millionaires have also been accumulating. Bitcoin held on addresses storing 100-to-10,000 BTC hit 9.23 million bitcoin (US$364 billion) as of August 1, which is a new all-time high for this group of investors.
In the last four weeks, these addresses have accumulated approximately 170,000 more BTC. This staggering pace was last matched in late December 2020, right before a massive bull run kicked off in 2021 where prices jumped from $29.0k to $40.8k in the year’s opening week.
Santiment data analytics
According to cryptocurrency data-tracking firm BitInfoCharts, there are now over 80,000 BTC millionaires, up from 25,000 just three months ago.
I recently had the pleasure of reviewing a new crypto hardware wallet called CoolWallet Pro. Here is my take on it as it enters the Australian market in 2021, providing a secure way to store your cryptos.
Pros:
Pretty cool card design for easy physical wallet storage (same size as a credit card).
Displays balance of BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP directly on the card.
Connects via Bluetooth to a mobile app.
Charges via a cool USB cardholder connector.
Supports BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, BCH, ZEN, ICX, DOT, TRON, ATOM, BNB BEP2, all ERC20 tokens, and TRC20 tokens USDT, USDJ, JUST, WBTT and WIN.
You can earn staking rewards for HODLing Polkadot, Tron and Cosmos.
It’s safer to store your cryptos in a cold hardware wallet rather than an exchange or hot wallet.
Co-branded cards can be used to customise the CoolWallet cards with your own branding to engage with your community.
Cons:
It’s pretty much just a hardware wallet – you can’t use the card like a debit card.
The technology is relatively new, although it looks secure enough.
Bit pricey at AU$200 (although there is a cheaper model S for around AU$100).
How to Order the Wallet
The CoolWallet Pro is now available through a local reseller, Coinstop, that ships in 1-3 business days Australia-wide (use code COOLWALLET10 for a $10 discount). Otherwise, you can order it from the official CoolWallet site, where there’s a notice saying “Please note that your payment will be charged in New Taiwan Dollars (NTD)” so there might be a currency conversion fee associated. And they also say that orders will be dispatched within 10 working days (unless stated on next batch delivery date). Always remember to buy from the original manufacturers and authorised resellers to ensure the safety of your crypto. Don’t be that guy that buys off eBay only to find his crypto missing a few days later.
Unpacking the Wallet
The card comes nicely packaged with a security seal, instruction manual, charger and seed card. I put the card in the charger for around three hours initially to get a full charge on it before setting it up. #mycoolwallet
Setting Up the Wallet
To set up the wallet, you’ll need to download the CoolBitX Crypto mobile app (a smartphone running at least Android 6, or iOS 9.1 is required).
Once you have the app installed, you can update the firmware to the latest version. That done, you can pair your card with the mobile app using Bluetooth (NB: the app crashed during the firmware upgrade, so I force closed the app and restarted it, clicked ‘update’ and it worked.)
Press the button on the actual card to pair it with the mobile app. Once connected, the card should show a zero Bitcoin balance.
Setting Up the Crypto Wallet
There are two ways to set up your crypto hardware wallet:
Using the card to display the keywords (displayed as numbers on the actual hardware card)
Using the mobile app to display the keywords (displayed as words on your mobile phone screen)
Option 1 is considered safer as it doesn’t show your keywords on your mobile device or store them as an image, which hackers could exploit. Option 2 is easier as you can simply write down your keywords or take a screenshot (not recommended).
Using Option 1 – Setting up using the card
To set up the crypto wallet using the card to display the numbers was a bit challenging and time-consuming, as you need to write down every number displayed on the card, one by one, double-check and then sum the total to confirm at the end.
I ran into some issues setting up the wallet via the card, as it wouldn’t accept the total sum number I entered. After triple-checking the number was correct, and still not working, I moved to Option 2.
Using Option 2 – Setting up using the app
To set up the crypto wallet using the phrases on the phone was very easy; you simply write down your words (can be 12 or more) then verify them one by one. There is a button to save your seed as an image file (which didn’t work for me).
Adding your coins
Adding new coins to your wallet is pretty simple; just click the plus (+) at top right and add/remove coins as you wish to create your portfolio. You can also choose to hide your balance (which doesn’t seem to hide the balance on the card also, though).
Recieving BTC to CoolWallet Hardware from an External Wallet
Sending BTC to the hardware wallet from an external wallet is pretty straightforward:
Open the CoolBitX mobile app
Click Send
Send the BTC to the address shown
Voila – your BTC balance should now appear on the app and on the card.
Sending BTC from CoolWallet Hardware to an External Wallet
Sending BTC from the hardware wallet to an external wallet is also pretty straightforward:
Open the CoolBitX mobile app
Click BTC, click send (or whichever crypto you want)
Scan the address (QR code) of your external wallet (I used Exodus wallet)
Confirm the amount and select fees (higher the faster), click Send
Wait about 30 minutes for BTC blockchain to complete the transaction (fees and time will vary)
In a real example, I sent $0.00076252 BTC (AU$47.78) and received AU$32.72, paying AU$11.17 in fees.
Background Info on CoolBitX Company
CoolBitX company brand was established in 2014 and the first generation CoolWallet was born in 2016 (the world’s first cold storage device designed for mobile). It supported only Bitcoin at that time, so in 2018 CoolBitX improved the idea and introduced the CoolWallet S for expanded coin support and an integrated Marketplace to satisfy the evolving needs of users.
FAQ and Getting Help
There is an official manual that may help you with setup and some information on their YouTube channel.
According to an on-chain market size report by Crypto.com, the number of people involved in crypto has doubled in the first half of this calendar year, reaching over 220 million users by the end of June.
The data compiled by Crypto.com pulled figures from 24 of the largest crypto platforms.
100 Million to 200 Million in Six Months
User numbers doubled in just six months as crypto fever spilled into the mainstream, with the market green across the board and meme coins at the height of their popularity.
From February to May, cryptomania saw the number of users surge to a record 203 million, up from 106 million. In comparison, it took nine months for the user base to reach 100 million (from 65 million).
The growth we have seen in the first half of 2021 on our platform and industry-wide is very encouraging, and we will continue investing heavily as we pursue our goal of putting cryptocurrency in every wallet.
After nearly a decade, a wallet containing 791 bitcoin (BTC) has become active. The Satoshi era wallet drew the attention of Whale Alert by making a transaction worth over US$21 million.
A transaction was recently spotted by Whale Alert, an analytics system that reports on “large and interesting” transactions across various blockchains. The activity from a dormant wallet such as this, moving over US$21 million worth of bitcoin, isn’t something we see every day.
💤💤 A dormant address containing 791 #BTC (26,147,621 USD) has just been activated after 9.1 years!https://t.co/Zc5D647ZMx
Whale Alert’s attention was caught by the 640 BTC transaction coming from a dormant Satoshi era wallet. Further investigation found that the wallet was used to store bitcoin mined back in 2011 and 2012. At that time bitcoin was trading at around US$5 and is currently around US$31,000, making a nice little retirement fund for someone today.
Could It Be One of Satoshi’s Wallets?
Some suspect that the wallet may be one of many owned by Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym for the founder of the Bitcoin network, who was estimated to have mined 1,125,150 bitcoin up to block 54,316.
According to FXStreet, it’s likely that the wallet belongs to Satoshi since it was created around the same time as many others that belong to the mysterious creator. Some have tried to claim this title, among them Australian programmer Dr Craig Wright, who was recently part of a lawsuit regarding the Bitcoin whitepaper.
It’s nearly impossible to know who the real owner of the wallet is, especially if they don’t want to be known, and there’s a good chance we never will. Some Twitter users made jokes about the wallet owner who finally remembered the passwords after nine years.
Trust Wallet users are getting false hopes of being “overnight multimillionaires” following a sudden increase in the value of some cryptocurrencies held in the mobile wallet. This was apparently a Trust Wallet glitch.
Users Complain About Incorrect Prices
Following complaints from users, BabyDogeCoin and the Phoenix Protocol token (PHX) are among the coins affected by the glitch. In a recent post on Reddit, one of the users told how his PHX bag suddenly turned to “US$300 million”, only to find out he couldn’t withdraw the funds.
Reddit User’s Trust Wallet
I was already in the process of making a ‘help me cash this out please’ post when I found their week-old tweet saying ‘CMC and Trust Wallet seem to be displaying the incorrect price for Phoenix. It is a glitch, unfortunately.’
Trust Wallet user
When trying to sell or withdraw the amount on the wallet, users received a different price, which was less than the inflated prices on the Trust Wallet.
The $13k wasn't real. When/if you try selling it at 13k it will be way lesser that that. Probably $5k.
While some understood this inaccurate data to be a glitch, other users weren’t happy with the development as they claimed it gave them false hopes and even “played with their feelings”.
How Trust Wallet Calculates Prices
The mobile wallet platform depends on the price information provided by CoinMarketCap, a crypto price tracking platform. The value of coins on a Trust Wallet is the average trading price across multiple exchanges. It remains unknown whether the glitch was from the Trust Wallet or the data feed.
However, it’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time such an incident has occurred. There was a similar issue last month where Trust Wallet assured users that “funds are SAFU”.
Just a minor glitch guys. Funds are #SAFU. Price data from @CoinMarketCap is back to normal.
Stay away from scams please.
— Trust – Crypto Wallet (@TrustWalletApp) June 14, 2021
Earlier this year, Swyftx announced it had listed the native cryptocurrency of Trust Wallet on its platform. And just last week, scammers were found to be sending out fake emails and confirmation messages to Coinbase users in an attempt to lure them into revealing their account details.
Last year, hardware wallet provider Ledger reported an internal security breach resulting in the exposure of 250,000 to 1,000,000 customer email addresses. In some cases, the information leaked included full names and addresses.
Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, has revealed that each of the Central American republic’s 6.5 million citizens will be entitled to US$30 worth of Bitcoin if they sign up to use the government’s Bitcoin wallet, Chivo.
According to Numbeo, which assesses the cost of living in countries around the world, the average person in El Salvador earns around US$13 per day. So the airdrop represents over two days’ worth of wages.
President Nayib Bukele reveals Chivo, the El Salvador government’s Bitcoin wallet. Source: Documenting BTC
The move aligns well with the president’s recent statement that his country is adopting Bitcoin for the benefit of the people. Although every citizen of El Salvador will be entitled to the airdrop, Bukele stressed that nobody will be forced to use Bitcoin if they don’t want to:
The use of Bitcoin will be optional. Nobody will receive Bitcoin if they don’t want it […] If someone receives a payment in Bitcoin, they can choose to automatically receive it in [US] dollars.
Nayib Bukele
The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (also known as CZ), applauded the move, no doubt aware that a large portion of these new users will use Binance to trade crypto in the future.
The Bitcoin airdrop is a costly attempt by the El Salvadorean government to convince citizens to use its preferred wallet, Chivo. The scheme could cost the government around US$100 million if at least half of the population decides to take up its offer.
So what’s in it for the government? Some argue it is merely an effort to kickstart an ambitious economic transition. Others are far more sceptical.
The government will force people to use Bitcoin through a centralized custodian, and have access to everyone’s private keys.
This is a dramatic shift to full on authoritarianism, yet many maxis support it, and won’t speak out since they want numbers to go up.
Things are moving quickly in El Salvador. It was only weeks ago that it became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Since then, Athena Bitcoin announced it will be installing 1,000 Bitcoin ATMs across El Salvador, while Chainbytes announced that it wants to make El Salvador the hub of its crypto ATM operations for all of the Americas.
Problems With the World Bank
On a practical level, El Salvador has been having some issues with the World Bank, which has refused to help with the implementation of the country’s new Bitcoin ecosystem.
El Salvador 🇸🇻: FUCK BANKS! WERE GOING CRYPTO. NEW WORLD ORDER!
Also El Salvador 🇸🇻: Hey boo… could we get a wittle help pwease with our new world order? 😘😘 🥺🥺 https://t.co/9dacCfIb5N
This could be a major logistical problem for El Salvador, or perhaps just a temporary roadblock; we will have to wait and see. One thing is for certain – Bukele won’t be focusing on the negatives. The President will keep his laser eyes trained on his vision of progress and economic revolution.
