Part of the CustodyStress archive of observed Bitcoin custody incidents
Mobile or software wallet
Cases in this category involve mobile apps and desktop software wallets. Recovery depends entirely on whether a seed phrase backup was made and stored independently of the device.
Mobile and software wallets are the most frequently observed custody system in this archive, reflecting their widespread use. The structural risk is consistent: where a seed phrase backup was created and stored independently of the device, recovery was possible. Where no backup existed, loss of the device meant permanent loss of access.
572 observed cases
Blocked
405 (71%)
Constrained
44 (8%)
Survives
118 (21%)
Indeterminate
5 (1%)
The script was lost in a disk failure in 2013.
Mobile or software wallet
A forum thread from March 2015 describes a user who encrypted their Bitcoin-Qt wallet with a passphrase generated from a custom algorithm they wrote in 2012. Th
Their house was flooded in March 2015 and the seed was destroyed.
Mobile or software wallet
A user who set up a hardware wallet in early 2015 stored the recovery seed in a sealed envelope in a desk drawer. Their house was flooded in March 2015 and the
The victim transferred approximately 3 BTC under duress before reporting to police.
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin holder was targeted by criminals who had identified their holdings through public forum posts. The criminals threatened physical harm to a family memb
The bag was lost by the airline.
Mobile or software wallet
A user who stored their wallet on a laptop left it in a checked bag during air travel in April 2015. The bag was lost by the airline. The laptop was never recov
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2015)
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had set up a BIP38-encrypted paper wallet in 2013 kept the encrypted private key but had not used the wallet in over a year. In April 2015 they attem
Seed phrase unavailable — software wallet 2015
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had backed up their Mycelium wallet seed as a photo on their phone lost all photos when their cloud backup was inadvertently deleted during an OS mig
The stranger demanded 3 BTC or threatened to report fabricated crimes to police.
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin miner who had publicly celebrated passing 10 BTC on a forum was contacted by a stranger claiming to know their real identity and address. The stranger
The attackers demanded 1 BTC to decrypt the files—less than the wallet held—but
Mobile or software wallet
A 2015 forum case documents a user who stored their Bitcoin Core wallet on a Windows PC. The PC was infected with ransomware that encrypted all local files. The
The estate attorney found a reference to 'wallet backup 2010' on a USB drive but
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin early adopter who died in 2015 had created a wallet in 2010 and used it regularly until 2013. Since then the wallet had been dormant. The estate attor
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2015
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had generated a 'brain wallet' by hashing a memorable poem into a private key found in 2015 that the specific line they had used—one they had encount
Professional recovery was attempted but the NAND chips were corroded beyond recovery.
Mobile or software wallet
A forum post from June 2015 documents a user who kept their wallet on a USB drive that was washed in laundry. The drive was not waterproof and the electronic co
Device lost — software wallet 2015
Mobile or software wallet
A user who kept a secondary Bitcoin wallet on a work computer was made redundant in June 2015 with immediate effect. The company's IT policy meant their work co
Owner death — software wallet (2015)
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin investor who had accumulated coins through a mining operation died in June 2015. The family knew about the Bitcoin holdings but the investor had insis
During an office cleanout the Post-It was discarded.
Mobile or software wallet
A user documented in 2015 that they had encrypted their wallet with a passphrase stored on a Post-It note attached to the underside of their keyboard. During an
The previous owner had sold the phone without disabling their Google account.
Mobile or software wallet
A user who maintained a secondary wallet on a second-hand Android phone found in July 2015 that the phone had been remotely wiped by its previous owner using An
Multisig quorum failure — software wallet (2015)
Mobile or software wallet
A partnership that had set up a 3-of-5 cold storage arrangement in 2013 attempted to access funds in July 2015. Of the five key holders, one had died, one was u
The wallet contained far more BTC than expected—accumulated from a mining pool payout
Mobile or software wallet
A developer who had created a wallet for testing in 2013 and then forgotten about it rediscovered it in 2015. The wallet contained far more BTC than expected—ac
Seed phrase unavailable — software wallet 2015
Mobile or software wallet
A 2015 forum post describes a user who had photographed their seed phrase card and stored it in an encrypted folder on their phone. The phone encryption passphr
The wallet was stored solely on the SSD.
Mobile or software wallet
A 2015 documented case describes a Bitcoin miner whose dedicated mining computer suffered a catastrophic SSD failure. The wallet was stored solely on the SSD. T
Passphrase unavailable — Electrum (2015)
Mobile or software wallet
A documented 2015 case describes a user who had set their Electrum wallet passphrase as a concatenation of two pet names. Both pets had since died and the user
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2015
Mobile or software wallet
A user who used a keyboard macro to enter their wallet passphrase found in August 2015 that the macro software had auto-updated and the stored macro was not com
They could identify partial characters but could not reconstruct the exact BIP39 words
Mobile or software wallet
A user had split their 24-word BIP39 seed across two sheets of paper stored in different locations. When retrieving them in 2015, they discovered one sheet was
When they retired from freelancing in September 2015, they donated the laptop to
Mobile or software wallet
A freelancer who had received Bitcoin payments for work stored their wallet on a laptop used exclusively for work. When they retired from freelancing in Septemb
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2015
Mobile or software wallet
A forum user documented a 2015 case where they had set their Armory wallet passphrase to a phrase that included the current date—a practice recommended nowhere
Seed unavailable — software wallet (2015)
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had distributed their seed across three trusted family members for redundancy found in September 2015 that one family member had moved and the sealed
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