your currency . Just as it pays to put your watch or other jewellery in a safe deposit box , so too does a little effort into how you manage your cryptocurrency .
Lost cause
A recent article shows just how significant the extent of this can be . An IT worker in the UK kept 7,500 Bitcoins ( almost R930 million ) on his laptop . However , after it broke he sold the computer for spare parts but kept the drive . Unfortunately for him , he mistakenly put the drive in a waste bin at a local landfill site while cleaning his house in 2013 . Following the surge in the currency in recent months , he now wants to go find it . The health and safety regulations of trying to dig around four years ’ worth of landfill has seen the council reject his requests for trying to locate the drive .
This and many other examples on the Internet should spur even the most sceptical of people into action . Even though the financial impact is significant ( and potentially devastating ), one should take care of applying the same availability rules to digital wallets and cryptocurrencies as is done to all important data .
Don ’ t bank on an online backup
The most critical of these is the 3 – 2 – 1 principle . It states that you should have at least three copies of your data , store the copies on two different media and keep one backup copy offsite and off the Internet . You might even consider making a backup to leave in a safe deposit box with your watch ; just make sure you encrypt it first . For obvious reasons you cannot duplicate your digital wallet or cryptocurrency , but you can still ensure you do not keep it at your physical location and off the Internet .
Going with a reputable service provider for the safe storage of your cryptocurrency is the best way of avoiding loss if your drive gets stolen or compromised . Despite it being digital , if cryptocurrency is lost , such as in the case of the hard drive in the landfill site , it is gone forever . Imagine it as real cash left in a burning house .
Cryptocurrencies , very much like our reliance on data , are here to stay . www . intelligentciso . com | Issue 01
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