A critic of Bitcoin and a gold bug, he says he can no longer access his bitcoin wallet (BTC), and this has again raised the discussion on the adage: not your keys, not your coins.
Who really is Peter Schiff
Peter Schiff, a major gold investor, CEO and global chief strategist of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., tweeted in recent days that he cannot access his Blockchain wallet and that he has lost all his bitcoins, which "proves" that he has this cryptocurrency was a bad idea, he says.
Less than three weeks have passed since we celebrated Proof-of-Keys Day and numerous users in the comments believe that Schiff simply lost his password. However, he insists that he has not forgotten his password, but that the wallet does not recognize the correct one. For its part, Blockchain responded to the gold bug by assuring him that the funds are safe and that they would contact him via a private message.
Whether he is right one or the other, the fact remains that after Schiff's tweet the topic exploded on Twitter. The CEO of the main crypto exchange, Binance, Changpeng Zhao, commented on Schiff's claim that he admits that he always uses a simple numeric password, saying that probably even a centralized exchange cannot help Schiff protect his money, adding “I can't to believe I'm going to say it, but "stick to the fiat currency?"
"However, Zhao also said that while many advocates of" hardcore "cryptography store their keys," most people are unable to protect a key even from themselves (by losing it), "adding that a centralized exchange of trust is safer for most people.
Many did not appreciate this consideration, reminding Zhao that Binance was also violated. Although the exchange in question covered the loss, according to some, the risk remains. “Your private keys are safe with me!
The owner of the centralized exchange said it lost $ 40,000,000 in bitcoin last year because of a hacker, "commented Jameson Lopp, House's Chief Technology Officer. Tron's Justin Sun also joined the debate, believing that cryptocurrency is "like freedom" and that from this freedom comes the responsibility to remember one's private key.
Is the situation really like this?
And while some, like Anthony Sassano, head of product marketing at SetProtocol, believe that Schiff is the champion of defamatory marketing, others find the situation even worse, since Schiff manages the money of third parties (which can cause the failure of his marketing plan), and others claim that this event served him to pay more attention in keeping his keys.
In the meantime, while there are those who think that if people can't write the 12 words of the seed phrase then they are not ready to own BTC, others, including Justen Sun and Christian Lundkvist of ConsenSys, suggest that when a cryptocurrency comes given as a gift, the donor should be able to keep a copy of the seed sentence.