Vacation for three days, but my wallet was emptied—this is no joke.

Some time ago, I was on vacation with my family at a luxury hotel, and only before leaving did I realize there was not a single penny left in my account. The most bizarre part is that I didn’t do anything "dangerous." I didn’t click on suspicious links, didn’t sign any malicious transactions, and didn’t even interact with any strange decentralized applications.

After several hours of in-depth investigation, with the help of experts I hired, I finally figured out what happened. The culprit was actually very simple: hotel WiFi, a phone call, and a series of my own basic mistakes.

**How it all started**

As a cryptocurrency professional, I always carry my laptop when I go out, thinking I can handle work during spare moments with my wife and kids. She insisted I put down the laptop and enjoy the holiday properly. If I had listened to her, this wouldn’t have happened.

The hotel WiFi was like all public networks—no password required, just connect and log in through a verification page.

I was working normally in the room, not doing anything out of the ordinary: didn’t create a new wallet, didn’t click on any links randomly, just checked Twitter, looked at my balance, and chatted on Discord and Telegram. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

Then a crypto friend called me. We talked about market trends, Bitcoin’s movement, and recent developments in the crypto market. But I didn’t realize that someone around me was...

This was the critical turning point of the story. The seemingly harmless three factors—public network environment, receiving a phone call, and some threats I didn’t notice—ultimately led to this disaster.