Today I'm going to be going over the very basics of Wallet Corruption. TL;DR below

We will be covering:

• What is Wallet Corruption?
• What's the chance of it happening to me?
• How can I make sure it doesn't happen to me?

WARNING: The links below are reddit and twitter threads. As always, DYOR and verify any links you click on online.

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Intro

Everyone talks about the most common ways to lose your crypto. Typing your seed phrase into shady websites, losing your wallet device, etc. etc. But no one talks about the more absurd and obscure ways that self-custody can f*ck you over.

Users on MetaMask, Ledger, and Trezor have been/are still affected by this.

In 2018, a "storage limit" bug was introduced to MM that forces users to reinstall MM and reimport their wallets with their seed phrase.

In just the last year, buggy firmware updates locked people out of their Trezors.

In the past few years I've been in crypto, I’ve personally met 4 ???? people that lost their crypto due to this seemingly unknown bug.

What causes it?

Usually it's bad programming.

Anything from memory leaks to faulty, unsigned firmware patches can lead to corruption. In the case of MM, it's having too many different NFTs ????

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There's a couple of things that we can say for sure about wallet corruption.

• Wallet corruptions are usually the fault of the wallet provider
• Even trusted wallets like MM and Trezor are susceptible
• Hardware wallets tend to get corrupted during the firmware update process
• Cases are few and far between, but are unpredictable

The problem is exacerbated with how many new wallets enter the space every year. AFAIK wallet corruptions haven't happened to Coinbase or Crypto.com's DeFi Wallet, but can we guarantee a faulty patch won't brick users in the future?

How do I protect myself from it?

Luckily, protecting yourself from wallet corruption just boils down to one thing: Having good wallet security and resiliency. What you do now to protect yourself from accidental loss/destruction of your wallet or seed phrase will protect you from wallet corruption.

Here are a few things that you can do right now to make sure wallet corruption doesn’t f*ck you????

1. If you don’t have a seed phrase backup of your wallet, make one immediately. Write it down on a piece of paper, make a few copies, and store it somewhere safe. Seriously. Paper & Pencil is fine, something like Cryptosteel is better.
2. Try regenerating your wallet with your seed phrase on another device to make sure they actually work. If you import your wallet and there’s nothing in there, your seed phrase is wrong.
3. This seems basic, but you'd be surprised. NEVER give your seed phrase or private key to anybody other than the verified wallets you’re using. Double/triple check URLs and contract addresses. ledger.com and Iedger.com are COMPLETELY different websites.
4. Consider spreading your assets across a couple wallets so that you don’t get completely wiped out if things don’t go right. I personally have 2 hardware wallets and 2 “hot wallets” that I do trades on. My NFTs are spread across my hardware wallets to reduce my risk.

And that's about it! If you follow these 4 steps and are conscious about your self-custody, you can make sure that you don't get f*cked by something outside your control.

Afterword

If you've gotten some value out of this thread, please give it an upvote and give me your feedback below! :)

I work on a project called harpie.io, a fail-safe for your crypto. We use smart contracts to make sure that events like wallet corruption and seed phrase destruction don't leave you helpless. If it sounds interesting, please check it out or shoot me a DM. I'd be happy to do a demo and walk you through.

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Stay safe out there!

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TL;DR

Faulty wallet software/firmware can cause your wallet to become corrupted. Without having your seed phrase safe, you will be locked out of your wallet and all your assets. Having good seed-phrase backup policies will protect you from wallet corruption.