A businessman who lost $26 million in a copy-paste error says it’s ‘extremely painful’
One trader who recently disclosed that they lost $25 million in June after making a withdrawal to the wrong deposit address described the experience as “extremely painful.”
Anonymous crypto investor qklpjeth told Cointelegraph that he mistakenly transferred 7,912 Renzo restaked ETH (ezETH) — $26.4 million at current prices — to a secure contract address on June 19.
Unfortunately, they entered the wrong address and said they sent the money to the safe module instead of the vault itself, which means the tokens are “locked and cannot be withdrawn”.
When asked how the error was made, qklpjeth responded briefly:
“In a word: wrong copy.”
Although the breach happened five months ago, X recently put out a call for white hat hackers after exhausting traditional ways to get their money back.
Qklpjeth has officially asked for help, hoping that someone can identify and exploit a smart contract bug that could allow them to recover their money in full.
Source: qklpjeth
The crypto community has been quick to offer advice. In response to qklpjeth's original X post, Defillama developer 0xngmi said that the best course of action is to contact the Renzo protocol directly and ask them to change their token contract.
Unfortunately, qklpjeth said that he contacted Renzo directly to recover the funds, but the protocol was unable to help him due to regulatory limitations.
A wake-up call for better UX
Meanwhile, Harrison Seletsky, director of business development at digital identity platform SPACE ID, told Cointelegraph that the multimillion-dollar crash is a “wake-up call” for a better user experience in the crypto industry.
“It's shocking that simple copy and paste mistakes are still costing people millions of crypto,” he said.
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“It's a very sad experience to go through and I really hope this crypto user can get their money back, but stories like this are a wake-up call for our industry. We must do better.
Seletsky says mistakes like these shouldn't happen in crypto more than a decade after bitcoin was invented, adding that mass adoption won't happen until everyday users feel secure in their ability to transfer funds without risking losing it all. Simple typing.
“When faced with the choice between entrusting their financial security to a centralized entity and trusting them to be infallible, most people choose the former,” Seletsky said.
“UX is the key to unlocking mass crypto adoption, so there needs to be more focus on UX first and foremost for crypto transactions.”
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