NFT Security
How do you recover from the pain of having your wallet drained?
1000s of ETH cashed out by scammers. We almost see it every day now, and something we all want to avoid.
Stealth mints, scam contracts, all for one purpose — to drain wallets. To this day, we hear people losing valuable assets, and seems like no amount of education will stop this anytime soon (the recent Metamask update looks like a suitable plaster, at least).
When I spoke to someone interested in NFTs, I caught myself talking about security for about 20 minutes — sounds familiar?
The community is coming together, and we help each other, but that will not recover precious assets (ok, fair enough, sometimes it does).
Perhaps it’s worth focusing on preventing this from happening in the first place, but let’s look at what you can do if the worst has already happened.
1. Short term
You’re likely sitting with an overwhelming, helpless, and/or panicky feeling. This sucks. Perhaps there’s the added shame that you didn’t see it coming.
Then there’s the painful utility of web3 — watching your precious assets leave your wallet live or watch it happen to others and there is not much you can do (apart from revoke.cash).
My advice: don’t do this👆🏻
Sitting with helplessness is very difficult, and unless you are well versed in defusion and other techniques, I’d suggest trying to clear your head in some ways.
Ask yourself what you need, and talk to your community/friends if that helps. But you might want to do the opposite and go offline a bit:
- think about what comforts you: food, fresh air, gym, music, pets
- ground yourself — breathe, move your body, touch grass
- remember everything will pass. you lose assets, but it’s a temporary problem
- although the above option of researching and “watching” will be tempting, try to resist and kick yourself in the backside to pick one activity on the above list
2. Mid-, long term
You might notice random triggers appear which bring back memories of what happened. This creates a response in the nervous system similar to a trauma response.
Creating space for sadness, grief, fear, and embarrassment can help these emotions come and go as they please instead of being around all the time.
Time to bring up some learning points and action those steps — up your security.
Guys, this stuff is traumatic. No magic wand will take the bad taste of pain away. I wish there was.
On top of what was mentioned above, there is a bonus step you can take:
Cultivate love, compassion, and joy. This cocktail is capable of something we all want in this situation: healing.
If you want to read more about security tips and how to overcome anxiety about that, click here:
