My Friend My Backstabber

4 months ago

My blogging journey started far back in 2018 when a senior friend of mine introduced me to a very popular Nigerian-based blogging site called "Opera News Hub" We signed up and started creating content for the Opera mini ecosystem, but the pay was conditional. For every 1000 views on your content, you would be rewarded $1. So there were months when we cashed out above $100 but there were also months when we got as low as $0.9, lol.

We began seeking other blogging platforms, and that was when my friend found Steemit, a decentralized social media platform that allowed us to create content and get rewards from votes. I joined my friend there back in 2019-2020, and we started writing and earning again.

I grew really big on that platform and I started onboarding new users as well before leaving the platform few years ago. One of the user I onboarded on that platform was Yusuf a supposed friend of mine whom I taught everything he needed to know for a successful blogging journey on the platform. I even taught him on how to secure his keys and wallet logins, but after teaching him all that, he tested his stealing skills on my wallet behind my back, and went away with my assets of around $150-$200.

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It was on a Saturday evening at around 11 PM, and I had just finished watching a series, I logged in to my Steemit wallet and the first thing I realized was that my $200 worth of liquid steem was missing and I equally observed that my wallet was on power down. I thought it was a glitch on the part of the platform, but as I reloaded the page again and again it became clearer to me that my account has been tampered with.

I was immediately heartbroken, and I felt physical pain and anger at the same time, lol. It was as if my whole hardwork for many years was stolen by a secret enemy. To make matters worse, it was a bullish season, and the value of my liquid asset was around $200. I had saved that up for many months and I was supposed to use it for something very important the next week before it was stolen.

I couldn't sleep that night because I was more determined on figuring who had done this evil against me. I copied the address of the transaction and started exploring it. I pasted it on various search engines and I was lucky to see the latest transactions done on the address and the username of the person that carried out the transaction. I was shocked to my bones when I saw that it was Yusuf my trusted friend.

It was then I recalled that I had given my phone to Yusuf on one evening while I was playing football, he took advantage of my trust for him and transferred all my wallet keys and details to his phone and he had been waiting for the right time to steal my funds. I wanted to call him that night and threaten him with all the evidence I had but I knew he would deny it, so I decided to wait till the next morning so that I can confront him physically.

I cancelled my plans for going to church that Sunday and went straight to his house and woke him up. As he opened the door, I quickly held his shirt and dragged him outside. I told him to bring his phone and he was pretending not to know what was talking about.

People had started to gather around us and after showing everyone my evidence, they told him to go inside and bring his phone, which he did. I logged in to his roqqu wallet and after refreshing it, I saw my asset on his wallet. Yusuf began to deny that he didn't know how my asset got to his wallet, I wanted to start beating him but I guess the joy of seeing back my assets overwhelmed me and I just transferred my funds back to my wallet and left him.

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I learned alot from what had happen to me because I was a bit careless and carefree about the security of my keys and passwords. I should have set-up more security measures to safeguard my keys from unauthorized access but I didn't and I paid the price of my negligence.

I now know better because from time to time I tend to change my password and wallet keys for new ones because I don't know who might have gotten access to my current key without my permission.

The Hive blockchain is decentralized which means the security of our assets and funds is solely in our hands and we are responsible for any lost that we would face. Always avoid clicking on dubious or phishy links, and I would personally advise you update your keys regular too.