Mon, 21 Apr 2025

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 'I was careful and followed instructions closely, but still lost my crypto'

A customer's experience highlights issues dealing with cryptocurrency, where many regular banking safeguards do not apply.
Tzoni Raykov, a Bulgarian oil engineer, lost $1,500 worth of cryptocurrency due to an administrative error with Revolut. He had transferred the funds to his account using USDC coins, but instead of crediting them to his account, Revolut received the wrong type of coin, which was not supported by their system. The company told him that the issue was not with the network used for the transfer, as Tzoni believed, but rather that the unsupported asset did not fall within Revolut's scope to recover. Tzoni is frustrated and feels powerless because he believes that if the deposit instructions were clearer, his problem would have been avoided. He thinks it is unacceptable treatment from a company of Revolut's size and reputation, which handles normal banking deposits as well as cryptocurrency, stocks, and commodities. The case highlights some of the frustrations people have had using cryptocurrency, where many customer safeguards that underpin standard online banking transactions do not apply. The global cryptocurrency market has risen sharply in value over the past 18 months, but government policies are changing to favor the industry. Tzoni's loss is tiny compared with the size of the industry, which peaked at $3.9tn last December and has fallen by $1.1tn since then. However, the lack of regulation and high-risk practices in the industry have led to several scandals, including the bankruptcy of FTX and the hacking of Bybit. Prof Mark Button, who researches cybercrime, says that one of the problems with cryptocurrency firms is that they can grow very quickly, which means they don't always keep up with the accounting and security challenges of managing so much money. He believes that there needs to be some kind of regulation in the industry. Mykhailo Tiutin, chief technology officer at AMLBot, a company that analyses how risky cryptocurrency transactions are, says that cryptocurrency is safe enough for the average person to use but that they should be careful about which products and services they choose. He has also lost cryptocurrency after making an administrative mistake.
  >>