A Taiwanese netizen yesterday (13th) posted a reward message on Threads, stating that they suddenly realized they had transferred 1.5 Bitcoins into an international wallet (Huobi) five years ago. Now, with the price of Bitcoin skyrocketing, they have lost access to this wealth due to a lost private key, which is locked in a safe that cannot be opened. (Background: Influencer MrBeast cried after having his Bitcoin private key stolen: Thankfully, the thief was too dumb to keep all BTC) (Background information: This girl is challenging herself to live for '21 days using only Bitcoin' on Women’s Island in Mexico) The Taiwanese Threads user 'weiwei.179' posted a reward message yesterday (13th), stating that they suddenly realized they had transferred 1.5 Bitcoins into an international wallet (Huobi) five years ago. Now, with the price of Bitcoin skyrocketing, they have lost access to this wealth due to a lost private key, which is locked in a safe that cannot be opened. This user added that they had used the Huobi wallet to make the transfer back then and had only exported USDT and ETH since, thinking they had cleared their holdings, not realizing that Bitcoin was still quietly sitting on the chain. Faced with the dilemma of 'having an address but no key', they are willing to pay 360,000 New Taiwan Dollars as a reward for assistance in recovering it, and emphasize that they will not provide account or personal information to prevent fraud. Threads' plea has sparked a discussion about the 'Keyless Door' This user described in Threads that while checking their locked yield on the MAX platform, they unexpectedly discovered their Bitcoin purchase record from 2020; at that time, the price of one Bitcoin was less than 300,000 New Taiwan Dollars, and they had just casually invested. Now, its value has increased tenfold, but they cannot retrieve the 1.5 Bitcoins due to a lost handwritten note containing the key. Feeling helpless, they left the question: 'If I can’t find that piece of paper, is there any way to decrypt it?' The irreversibility of the private key technology After browsing through the comments section, the answers were almost all negative. Many netizens commented that if the private key cannot be found, then it will be unsolvable, with some directly saying after seeing the plea: 'Thanks for providing a deflationary, circulating Bitcoin that has now decreased by 1.5...' We know that Bitcoin private keys are encrypted using elliptic curve cryptography, with possible combinations reaching 2 to the power of 256. Brute-forcing it is akin to picking out a specific grain of sand in a desert; currently, no computer can achieve this task. Moreover, many newcomers often confuse wallet passwords with private keys. A wallet password is only used to unlock the software interface; if forgotten, it can be attempted to recover. The private key, however, directly relates to the control of funds on the chain; once it disappears, it is like a bank destroying its seal and identification card, with no replacement window. The capabilities and limits of professional recovery services It is also worth mentioning that market recovery companies for crypto assets, such as Covasecure or Puran Crypto Recovery, mainly target cases of 'forgotten passwords' or 'missing a few words from the mnemonic phrase'. These situations can narrow the search range, with a success rate of up to 90%; however, for those who have completely lost their private keys, they usually have to decline, because if they could forcibly decrypt them, the security of the blockchain would cease to exist. Because of this, some criminals have also targeted investors' anxieties, claiming to be able to 'reproduce private keys', often starting by collecting a high deposit and then delaying. Experts remind that reputable companies often adopt a success fee model and will first check the on-chain address and possible backup traces, not easily accepting payment. Proper storage is the only answer This incident once again proves the cruel truth in the Web3 world: 'If it’s not your private key, it’s not your money.' Cryptocurrency has no customer service center and no lost property declaration. The only effective defense is to back up in advance and keep it properly. Searching for various safety recommendations, many experts remind investors to write down 12 to 24 mnemonic words on two fireproof papers and store them in different safes; simultaneously, prepare a hardware wallet, set a PIN and two-factor authentication, and check it once a year for a chance to ensure peace of mind. Returning to this Taiwanese netizen, perhaps what they can do at this stage is to rummage through boxes to find the letter from back then or recall if they took a backup photo. The chances of recovering what was lost are small, but the sooner they act, the less likely the clues are to disappear. If it’s forgetting the wallet password, there’s still a chance to find an expert to crack it, but if they remember the private key, it’s really very hard to recover. In the end, I still wish this netizen good luck in finding the key to unlock those 1.5 Bitcoins.

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