An elderly lady purchased several dozen bitcoins in 2015 with the help of a friend. The friend withdrew them to a Bitcoin PC wallet on their computer, providing her with a set of mnemonic words and a WIF private key.

In late 2017, she visited her friend’s house to check on her Bitcoin PC wallet and found that her coins were still there. However, shortly after that, the friend disappeared.

Recently, her daughter-in-law sought my help to recover the bitcoins. After investigating, the private key corresponded to a Bitcoin address that had transactions from 2012 to 2023. Any coins that were deposited were immediately transferred out, suggesting it was a trap. The mnemonic phrase provided was invalid, and the Bitcoin PC wallet did not support mnemonic phrases. Attempts to correct or reorder the mnemonic phrase using computational power yielded no results.

It is almost certain that she was deceived by her friend who gave her unrelated mnemonic words and a private key. The bitcoins were probably always stored on the friend’s computer, and crucially, she doesn’t even know the storage address.

This situation mirrors the unfortunate case involving Xu Bo, a well-known figure who entrusted his wife with managing his 6,900 bitcoins. As a result, an employee stole these bitcoins, underscoring the crucial lesson that private keys should always be kept personally. Relying on others for such sensitive matters can lead to losses due to human vulnerabilities.… except for me.

I’ll recover it, you can trust me.