Can $25 million be recovered? Trader's urgent plea

In a costly accident, a trader sent a whopping $25 million to the wrong crypto wallet address.

On Sunday, an unnamed trader mistakenly moved $25 million worth of tokens to the wrong part of their wallet. Instead of sending the funds to the main wallet—where all the crypto is stored and accessible—the trader mistakenly transferred the tokens to a "safe module". The main wallet allows full access to the funds, while the safe module is a more secure, restricted area that limits access, preventing the trader from retrieving the funds easily.

After realizing the error, the trader urgently sought help, telling DL News he hoped someone would discover a bug in the system to help him recover his funds.

In his desperation, he offered a $2.5 million reward on X to anyone successful in retrieving them, saying, "I'll immediately offer a 10% reward, roughly $2.5 million at the current price."

Urgent Request for Help!

To all skilled hackers and white hats out there: I’ve lost a significant sum of funds in a contract and urgently need help recovering it. If you can successfully retrieve the funds, I’ll immediately offer a 10% reward, which is approximately $2.5 million…

— 我有一个狗王梦 (@qklpjeth) November 10, 2024

The founder of DeFiLlama, Oxngmi, does not see much hope for the trader's situation, responding on X, saying, “I don't see any way to get your money out". He suggested that the only solution would be to contact the Renzo token team.

i don't see any way to get your money out, imo the only solution would be to contact renzo and, since their token contract is upgradeable, ask them to upgrade to add a function to rescue your funds

— 0xngmi (@0xngmi) November 10, 2024

However, the trader told DL News that the Renzo team could not help because of compliance issues. 

This incident is a stark reminder of blockchain's irreversible nature—meaning what is done cannot be undone. With this, the best thing to do is learn from these mistakes in order to avoid committing them. 

For one, it is important to double-check the wallet address and the network before proceeding with the crypto transfer. 

Another effective way to avoid these mistakes is to do test transfers. Before transferring lump sum amounts—like the trader's $25 million crypto holdings—it is better to start with small transactions. This could be as low as a 10 USDT trial transfer. 

While these steps may seem small and insubstantial, they can help traders avoid mistakes that could lead to millions of dollars worth of losses. In the end, it is much better to be safe than sorry.