Today I almost lost my entire BTC stack because I thought I was “too smart” for a backup

Today I met the dumbest version of myself.

When I first created my second passphrase wallet, I had that dangerous mix of confidence and laziness. “I’ll remember this,” I told myself. “It’s easy, no need to write it down.”

So I didn’t. And then, like an absolute genius, I sent most of my BTC stack to that wallet, because I wanted to retire the old one and “be more secure.”

Fast forward to today.

I sit down to create a new wallet and move some coins again. No big deal. I type in the passphrase, hit enter, and…

Wrong passphrase.

Okay, must’ve been a typo. I’ll type slower. Double-check every character. Again:

Wrong passphrase.

That’s the moment my body realised what my brain was trying hard not to process. My breathing got heavier. My hands started shaking. Suddenly I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

I tried again. And again. And again.

Same phrase. Same “I swear this is it” confidence. Same red error.

Then the real panic hit.

I started thinking about my wife. About how I’d have to walk up to her and say, “Hey… you know all those years of saving, all the late nights, all the risk, all the belief? Yeah… it’s gone. Because I thought I was too clever to write down a sentence.”

I felt sick. Genuinely sick.

I spent the next six hours in a kind of mental torture chamber.

Brute forcing my own brain. Trying every variation I could think of. Was there a dot at the end? Did I use UK spelling or US spelling? Did I capitalise that word? Was there a space at the end? Did I replace a word with a number?

Hundreds of attempts. Same screen. Same error. Same sinking feeling.

At one point, my hands were shaking so badly I had to physically put the keyboard down and just breathe. I was whispering prayers under my breath like some desperate gambler trying to will the next spin of the wheel in his favour.

Then, somewhere between despair and autopilot, I tried the phrase again…

But this time I changed the case of the letters. Same words, different capitalisation.

The wallet opened.

I just stared at the screen. For a few seconds, I couldn’t even feel relief. It was like my brain needed a moment to reboot. Then it all hit me at once: the adrenaline, the exhaustion, the gratitude, the anger at myself.

I was this close to losing everything not because of a hack, not because of an exploit, not because “crypto is risky”… …but because I was arrogant about a sentence.

Here’s what I learned today, and I’m writing this like I’m leaving a note to my future self:

• You are not smarter than entropy. • You are not above making a tiny typo that destroys years of work. • A single extra space, a capital letter, a dot at the end – that’s all it takes to turn your life savings into a permanent error message. 

From now on, I don’t care how “easy” or “memorable” a passphrase feels. I am writing it down. Properly. Backed up. Redundant. Stored safely. Not because I’m paranoid – because I’ve now seen the version of me who almost had to tell his wife, “It’s gone.”

If you’re reading this and you’ve ever told yourself,

“I’ll remember it, it’s fine,”

No, you won’t. You might. But you also might not. And that “might not” can cost you everything.

Today I got lucky. Today was a warning, not a punishment.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the feeling of that screen finally opening. But I also never want to be in a position where I have to rely on my memory like that again.

Write your phrases down. Respect the dots, the spaces, the case, every tiny character. Because they don’t just protect your wallet. They protect your future self from the worst conversation you’ll ever have.