Last year, Coinbase launched an asset recovery tool for people who really don’t understand how blockchain works, and think they can send CDAI coins to an Etherium wallet. I know that sounds like a pretty specific example, and I am able to make it because I am the numpty that made that mistake, several years ago. I make no secret of being incredibly bearish on crypto in general, and losing a few hundred dollars of a currency I didn’t understand by sending it to the wrong wallet, to me, felt like appropriate punishment for not knowing what the hell I am doing.

And for a long time, I thought that would be the end of the story. Until today, when I received an email from Coinbase, reminding me (I’m lightly paraphrasing) ‘hey, dumbass, we noticed you screwed up, here’s the info you need to reclaim your coins’.

Omg! It’s my lucky day! Image Credit: Coinbase

I had gone several rounds with support over the years to see if the coins could be recovered, but so far, there’d been no luck at all. This time, however, it seemed like I was in luck; the tool worked easily, and for a small finder’s fee, I was able to reclaim my coins, by sending the CDAI coins to a wallet, converting them into ETH, and sending them back to my Coinbase account.

Look, it doesn’t make me feel all that much smarter, but it was a tiny twinkle of optimism in my otherwise tumultuous day, and I’m definitely one for celebrating the little wins where I can get them.

So, I wish to extend a very public thank you to Coinbase for helping those of us who feel brave enough to experiment, but not smart enough to get things right on the first try — and a moment of gratitude for companies that are willing to do (presumably) hard things in order to make crypto just a tiny little bit more lenient to users who want to learn.