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%)
A user sent an old laptop to a certified electronics recycler in July 2019.
Mobile or software wallet
A user sent an old laptop to a certified electronics recycler in July 2019. Upon realising the wallet.dat file was still on the drive, they contacted the recycl
Sanctions lockout — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
Venezuelan Bitcoin holders in July 2019 faced compounding access difficulties: US sanctions on Venezuela's government extended to financial transactions, making
Device discarded — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
An estate case from July 2019 describes a living person who had suffered a stroke and lost recall of a passphrase used once in 2014. The passphrase was written
The safe was stolen in a home burglary in July 2019.
Mobile or software wallet
A user's seed phrase was stored on a microSD card inside a small safe. The safe was stolen in a home burglary in July 2019. The safe was later found opened and
Forced relocation — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
Ecuador's central bank issued guidance in August 2019 reiterating that Bitcoin was not legal tender and could not be used in commercial transactions. Ecuadorian
Owner death — software wallet 2019
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin investor died in August 2019 with a will that described 'cryptocurrency assets' without specifying the location or access method. The estate hired a b
They retained only fragments of the passphrase.
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had relied on their exceptional memory for their passphrase since 2012 developed early-onset cognitive decline in 2018. By August 2019 they retained
Device discarded — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had encrypted their wallet with a passphrase derived from a specific Sudoku puzzle's solution found in August 2019 that they could not locate the puz
Destroyed by lightning — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
A programmer's desktop computer was struck by a power surge from a nearby lightning strike in September 2019. The motherboard and hard drives were simultaneousl
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
A September 2019 forum post describes a user whose password manager was compromised and reset by an attacker who also changed the master password. The user lost
The developer's GitHub archives from that period did not contain the script.
Mobile or software wallet
A forum case from September 2019 describes a developer who had used a random string generated by a script they wrote in 2012. The script no longer existed and t
An October 2019 forum case describes a user who had their MacBook stolen at an airport.
Mobile or software wallet
An October 2019 forum case describes a user who had their MacBook stolen at an airport. The machine contained an encrypted wallet. The thief attempted to crack
Device lost — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
An October 2019 case describes a user whose phone was confiscated at a border crossing during an extended security screening. The officials cloned the phone's s
The attacker could not unilaterally spend but could block key rotation, leaving
Mobile or software wallet
An October 2019 forum case describes a Bitcoin DAO whose treasury multisig used smart contract-based key recovery. A Solidity vulnerability in the recovery cont
Owner incapacity — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
An October 2019 case documents a Bitcoin holder with a degenerative neurological condition who, in an earlier lucid period, had drafted instructions for accessi
The fish had long since died and no photos remained to confirm the exact spelling they
Mobile or software wallet
An October 2019 forum post describes a user who had used the name of a fish they owned as part of their passphrase in 2013. They could remember the fish's name
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2019
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin holder who had used the coordinates of their favourite hiking spot as their passphrase found in October 2019 that they could no longer identify which
The NAS held the only copy of their Bitcoin Core wallet.
Mobile or software wallet
A developer's NAS device failed catastrophically in November 2019 due to a RAID controller malfunction that corrupted all drives simultaneously. The NAS held th
Device lost — software wallet 2019
Mobile or software wallet
A user found in November 2019 that their cloud backup service had not backed up their wallet directory due to a configuration error. The local hard drive had fa
Documentation absent — software wallet 2019
Mobile or software wallet
An estate attorney described a November 2019 case in which the deceased had maintained a complex spreadsheet listing Bitcoin holdings across multiple wallets an
Forced relocation — software wallet (2019)
Mobile or software wallet
Following the Hong Kong protests that began in June 2019, some Hong Kong residents with Bitcoin on local exchanges began relocating assets offshore as political
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2019
Mobile or software wallet
A user found in November 2019 that they had set their wallet passphrase to a specific version of an online alias they had used in 2013. The alias had multiple c
They had been studying Mandarin when they created the wallet in 2013 and used
Mobile or software wallet
A user in November 2019 sought professional help after realising their wallet passphrase had been in a language they had since forgotten. They had been studying
The smartphone was reset to factory defaults after a technical fault.
Mobile or software wallet
A user stored their seed phrase in a voice memo on their smartphone. In November 2019 the smartphone was reset to factory defaults after a technical fault. The
By 2019 they could recall only 16 words and were uncertain of the order of the ones
Mobile or software wallet
A December 2019 case describes a user who had memorised their seed phrase but forgot it gradually between 2015 and 2019 as they stopped actively reciting it. By
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