Prologue

Every account shows a balance of zero.

Everything is at zero.

I blink. Once. Twice.

The numbers don’t change.

This cannot be happening.

I click Refresh. A small circle begins to spin. I realise I am holding my breath. It lasts only a few seconds, but it feels like a minute.

Come on...

Come on...

The Trezor has done this before. A bad connection. It happens. This must be the same thing.

I am standing at the kitchen island, leaning on it with both hands, the laptop between them.

The screen refreshes.

Balance: Zero.

Still.

My eyes stay fixed on the screen. But suddenly I notice everything around me. The soft hum of the refrigerator. The smell of fresh coffee. The sharp morning light flooding the kitchen. The birds outside.

Later, these are the details I will remember most clearly.

For a moment, my entire world is reduced to this kitchen.

I want to close the MacBook. Or hit it. Anything rather than look at that screen again.

This cannot be true.

Everything was still there yesterday.

What did I do yesterday?

I try to reconstruct the day, but only fragments return. The electrician’s bill. My computer. The Trezor. A website.

And then I remember.

The seed phrase.

My stomach tightens.

No.

I entered my seed phrase.

Yesterday, I went to the bedroom to get the mirror on which the twenty-four words were discreetly engraved. I even said something to my wife about how safe it all was.

I did it myself.

Pressure builds beneath my ribs. My breathing becomes shallow. My hands feel hot while the rest of my body turns cold.

I still try to reassure myself.

But the Trezor asked for it, didn’t it?

I had been having trouble logging in, hadn’t I?

That was why I needed to restore my wallet.

Anger rises inside me. Then fear. Then anger again. I can’t keep them apart.

Then comes the final blow.

Trezor never asks you to type your seed phrase into a website.

Never.

I knew that. I had even explained it to other people.

And yet...

I entered twenty-four words on a website I believed belonged to Trezor.

I had opened the door myself.

My eyes remain fixed on the screen. My hands move almost automatically towards the Ethereum account.

Maybe...

Maybe they only took the bitcoin.

Maybe they missed the rest.

I already know that is not true.

Still, I click.

Ethereum.

Zero.

The tokens.

Zero.

Gone.

Gone too.

I lower my hands from the keyboard.

There can be no doubt now.

In less than twenty-four hours, I have not only lost my bitcoin.

I have lost most of my retirement.

And I did it myself.