At 1:30 AM, I had just finished writing my weekly report and was about to sleep when my phone buzzed so hard from incoming messages that it fell off the bed.

I picked it up to see that Old Chen had sent seven or eight voice messages in the group, each over a minute long. My heart sank—a consultant in asset management for years, I know that a barrage of late-night messages is almost never good news.

Sure enough.

Old Chen's voice was trembling: "Bro, it’s over. The 3 million yuan for my son's study abroad next year—my wife followed the steps I wrote and now there’s not a single cent left in the wallet..."

I was instantly wide awake. I've handled a fair number of cases over the years. If it’s a normal market loss, I can at least console them about the market cycle, but whenever it’s life-saving money like education or medical funds, it really feels suffocating and helpless.

Before he could finish, I cut straight to the point: "Did you take a photo of that 12-word thing? Or send it on WeChat?"

There was silence on the other end.

A silence more painful than crying.

Piecing together the truth later: Last month, Old Chen was on a business trip and worried his wife wouldn’t know how to operate things, so he took a screenshot of the 12-word seed phrase, numbered them, and sent it to the family group. He even thoughtfully recorded a “foolproof tutorial” video. His wife followed the video, opened the wallet, and within three minutes, all six assets were completely drained. Contact customer service? The reply: "User-initiated operation, the system has no authority to recover funds."

After hanging up, I pulled up a report from a security firm. The data is chilling: in cases of asset loss, over 70% are due to users’ own mistakes, having nothing to do with high-tech attacks or system vulnerabilities.

Many people think that protecting your assets requires deep technical knowledge, but it’s actually the opposite—the most fatal mistakes are often those little actions that seem “a bit more convenient” or “a bit easier.”

Saving screenshots? Sending to family? Backing up to the cloud? Each “thoughtful” move could be a trap for your assets.

Those who truly manage to keep their assets safe never rely on luck—they treat a handful of simple, boring rules as habits, as natural as eating or drinking.