Dumb crypto question
How can one lose bitcoin when it is a decentralized public network? I have never understood this. Doesn’t every one in the network know where the bitcoin resides and whose wallet?
Without being a direct analogy, think of you losing the key to a public locker at a train station whose # you can partially remember but lost the unique key to open it, add a complexity that there is no customer service to provide you a separate key and no easy way to find and break it. And there are no dumb questions.
So basically hacking the private key to get access to bitcoins?
Losing bitcoins is different to having them stolen. If someone hacks you and gets your private key, they control the coins as much as you, so it depends on who sends them to a different wallet first - it will be them. If you forget your key, maybe by destroying the hard drive or paper it was stored on (without a backup), then you just don't know how to access the coins that still exist, so it's like they're gone. You could try to guess the key, but you'd have as much chance as anyone else, which is infinitesimal.
Thank you. This helps
Yea I lost private keys to a wallet once and I would stare at the wallet on etherscan and think, fuck I can’t believe that money is gone
How much was it?
Not too much. Worth like 700 bucks now
Basically this: https://youtu.be/T71YXYjo0J4 Silicon Valley did a bit on this scenario. It has happened to some people who lost millions (on paper)
My ex had over 700 BTC on Gox when it went dark lol
You can lose your private key.