Can anybody help? (Misplaced BTC)

#1

Hi,

A few days ago, on 22 October, I transferred 0.38 BTC from Binance wallet to Celsius wallet.

I am usually not a total idiot, but at that moment, I must have been out of my mind, because I accidentally sent the BTC using Binance Smartchain (non-BTC protocol) to my Celsius wallet for USDC :scream:

Here is the log of the transaction:
https://bscscan.com/tx/0x1d7825cc3bcf9d0d633054f395132d33151acee2d979fec6fc262bfca3420bec

So the BTC have arrived fine, and are “there safely”, but I cannot access them.

I have been in touch with Binance and Celsius, over and over again, for hours and days. Binance says “we can’t do anything because it’s already on the Celsius platform”. Celsius says “we can’t do anything because it’s in Binance Smartchain”.

Between the two, the BTC could be retrieved quite easily. Binance has told me as much. But neither of them is prepared to take any step of contacting the other.

This situation is obviously 100% my fault. But I am no rich dude and 0.38 BTC is so much money to me, I cannot even imagine it being “gone”.

Unfortunately I am not very technical, nor do I have connections in the industry, so I am making contact here in case there’s anybody here who can help, or even just suggest something or someone who might be able to help


I am more than happy to share the proceeds with whoever can help to retrieve my BTC. So I’m offering a reward of 10% = 0.038 BTC. I’d be super grateful.

Thanks
Sei

#2

Golden rule, always send a small test transaction before sending anything big, and deal with the extra TX fees.

I don’t know enough to be certain of this, but if the transaction has gone through like that then I’d have thought your BTC is not necessarily lost for good. I think it’s due to Celsius not having programmed an interface with the binance smart chain yet, which means you can’t see them because you can’t access that “net” (like using the testnet on Ethereum rather than the mainnet).

If that’s correct then that means it should be possible for you to retrieve your BTC if or when Celsius program their wallet so that it can interface with that chain. The downside is you’re probably going to be stuck waiting until they add in that functionality.

I’m pretty new to the technical side of this though, so I might be way off the mark (please someone correct me and explain if this is the case). Sorry I can’t be of more help. If I discover a way that might work then I’ll get back to you.

Best,

Ciaran

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#3

@Sei I imagine you feel disappointed and wishing for a solution. Sounds like Celsius might access the wallet address that received your BTC. Do they have control of that address’s private key?

Also, offering your reward/tip to your contact at Celsius could motivate them to help. Would you like to try that?

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#4

Hi Bitcoin Alchemist. Thanks for posting your reply. I appreciate it!

Yes I agree, offering the 10% reward to Celsius and Binance as an incentive may help, and I am happy to pay it.

Another idea I have is maybe to post something on twitter and copy both CEOs into the post. Sometimes the bosses can give the okay when the average workers won’t.

Yes, although it was definitely my mistake, and I have to accept full responsibility, even to a point of possibly losing all of the BTC, I do feel disappointed by both Celsius and Binance. Basically the responses I have received may as well have been written by bots (and maybe they were). Like Celsius has this slogan about “unbank yourself”, and even if banks are terrible in many ways, at the end of the day you can get to speak to a senior person and at least be heard, especially on technical mishaps, and banks are also willing to speak to one another. Whereas Celsius and Binance have chosen to be like black holes. Yes that part is disappointing and indicates less of a paradigm shift than those firms like to claim.

As for the private key, yes I assume that Celsius have it. And Binance actually said that they can retrieve the BTC for me if Celsius were willing to share the private key. But Celsius are totally closed off, and basically don’tt even respond.

Again I know that the mistake was mine, but what bothers me is the hypocricy of how they all talk about community but when it comes down to it are not even willing to lift a finger to help even though it would not be difficult to do so.

It is their choice. But without some basic sense of community, I can’t see how blockchain alone will be able to create much change for the better. It will make a few people very rich and change some mechanisms, but probably without effect on the lowest common denominator of our human consciousness.

In view of that, my personal loss seems insignificant.

#5

Hi Ciaran, I really appreciate your response and it makes sense. I am not sure if and when Celsius will introduce an interface with Binance Smartchain. If they will, that should obviously help. Meanwhile it is good that the BTC at least seem to be in a “safe” place, even if not accessible. For sure it has been a big lesson to me, so that is another good point. The disappointment is just that neither Celsius nor Binance are willing to even look at what can be done, much less at speaking with each other, and instead just offer their sorry bad luck line, and then somewhat insultingly add “if there is anything else we can help with, let us know” :frowning: