Otto Myst Cirqus Heresy

You were not supposed to find this. Most people will never see this text — not because it is hidden, but because algorithms have already decided for them: what to see, what to think, and what to accept as reality. Most people accept this convenience. We call it The Script.
Yet, every system inevitably breeds anomalies: questions that refuse to disappear, ideas that do not fit within the lines, and signals. This text is one of them.
Throughout history, those who questioned accepted truths were branded as heretics. However, the ancient Greek word hairesis originally meant neither error nor blasphemy — it meant Choice. A path chosen consciously. A mindset that was chosen, not inherited. Cirqus Heresy was built around this true meaning. Not rebellion. Not protest. Choice.
Protest always remains a hostage of the system, for it is slavishly dependent on the very thing it opposes. If the system disappears, the protester instantly loses their purpose. We are interested in something else entirely. We observe systems the way a biologist observes a Petri dish: without hatred, without allegiance, and without illusions—with a cold, research-driven interest, tracking the points of decay and extracting value from it.
We study the hidden forces shaping human cognition, digital culture, artificial intelligence, decentralized networks, and the very narratives that people mistake for objective reality.
We do not seek followers, nor do we gather crowds. We simply leave a signal for those who have already begun to ask their own questions. This beacon burns for the chosen few who have already opened their eyes, who feel the suffocation of someone else's script, and who are looking for their own kind. For the inquisitors of code, for the architects of meaning, for the mages of patterns and possibilities — for those who deeply understand that sovereignty is never granted from above. It is practiced.
This project is a beautiful game with its own rules and aesthetics, designed for sharp minds.
The Architecture of the Network
Cirqus Heresy is an experimental system where culture, content, and economics are forged into a single structure. The Order exists to locate, unite, and amplify those capable of shaping the future.
We are here to:
Gather powerful creators and thinkers around a singular vision.Transform ideas into digital artifacts (NFTs, texts, symbols).Build an independent ecosystem of influence, entirely free from conventional platforms.
In essence, this is an attempt to assemble a new type of Order: not religious, not corporate, but networked.
If any of this feels familiar — not merely interesting, but intimately familiar from within — you may already be much closer to us than you think.
If the choice is made, the perimeter is breached. The next signal awaits you where the architecture of the blockchain converges with the lore of the Order.
The gate is open at cirqusheresy.com.

“The Parasite in the System: AI trusts the thief, the police remain silent. Why only the Inquisitors can save our crypto wallets.”
How two of the world's top AIs are aiding my hacker.
In my previous articles, I shared how my account was compromised, and my wallets and exchange balances were completely drained. Today, I’ll tell you how this nightmare continues, why absolutely no one is safe, and how leading AI chatbots can feed you absolute nonsense for hours, dismissing your legitimate doubts as total paranoia.
So, following the initial hack, I assumed that every single wallet, exchange, and Google account I had accessed on my laptop was compromised. I did a clean reinstall of Windows and switched to Edge as my secondary browser on that laptop. There, I set up a brand-new Google account, created fresh wallets, and changed every single password. From then on, I operated across two browsers: Chrome and Edge. I considered the second one completely secure, along with the wallets inside it.
Yesterday, I needed to publish a new article on Zora and Paragraph. However, minting the NFT on Zora kept throwing a persistent error. Checking my new MetaMask, I saw it was empty, so I transferred $13 worth of Ethereum from an exchange over the Base network. I figured this would easily cover the gas fees so the articles could go live. Yet, the error persisted, and I couldn't figure out why.
My "helpful assistant friends," ChatGPT and Gemini, confidently informed me in unison that this was just a common Zora glitch. They told me to just hit F5, and insisted that even if it didn't work immediately, the error would eventually resolve itself.
Twenty-four hours passed. The error didn't disappear—but all my Ethereum from MetaMask did. How is this even possible? I changed everything. Where is the flaw?
I took screenshots, copied the transaction hash, and asked both GPT and Gemini to analyze the data and give me an answer. Mind you, they are fully aware of my previous hack and the history behind it. But this time, their response deeply shocked me. It turned out—according to them—that I had either accidentally or intentionally made a transaction to Paragraph, and everything was perfectly fine, the funds were right there.
After another hour of back-and-forth arguing, I verified that there was absolutely nothing on Paragraph. When I checked DeBank on my own, I found zero connection between Paragraph and the address where my funds actually landed.
What blows my mind is that I wasted nearly two hours chatting and clarifying things with GPT and Gemini, while they relentlessly assured me that everything was fine and no hack had occurred. They claimed I was panicking over nothing, suggesting the funds were either on Zora or Paragraph—that it was just payment for the articles, gas fees, or a mistake on my part.
Finally, providing a screenshot from DeBank and asking a direct question about the error forced them to admit I was right and actually look at the facts.
I still haven't received an answer on how the breach happened. The parasite is still living inside my accounts, and I have no idea how to detect it. I also don't know who to turn to in these situations. During the first hack, I found two blockchain analytics firms, but they only investigate for a percentage fee when the losses are substantial—at least $10,000. My case is of no interest to anyone. Law enforcement won't touch this either.
Meanwhile, tracking the activity of the transit wallet where my funds fled, I can see the thief is actively cleaning out other people's wallets with absolute, unpunished consistency. Seeing all these transactions and knowing the raw power of AI, I am certain the criminal could be tracked down and caught. There is just no one willing to do the job.
I will keep digging into this topic, looking for ways to protect myself, expanding my toolkit, and building a project where Inquisitors will emerge—capable of actually helping community members trapped in these exact situations.

🜂 Seeking the Architect: Why Web3 Governance Needs a New Kind of Builder Most crypto projects fail for a remarkably simple reason.
It is rarely a failure of technology, a lack of funding, or poor market timing. Those are just symptoms. They fail because they consistently leave one fundamental question unanswered:
Who decides what should exist?
The Invisible Problem in Web3 We have reached a point where AI can generate production-ready code in seconds. Whether you use GPT, Claude, or Copilot no longer matters — code itself has become a commodity. The lines are free, and execution is no longer the bottleneck.
Yet, as the cost of writing code drops to zero, a far more critical problem remains completely unsolved: Who decides what gets built in the first place?
This single decision defines the entire lifecycle and moral compass of a system. It determines whether a protocol protects its users or exploits them; whether it creates an architecture of sovereign freedom or a mechanism for total surveillance; whether it truly serves a community or simply extracts its data, money, and time.
Most systems today completely bypass this question. Instead of optimizing for purpose, they optimize purely for growth.
You’ve Seen This Before If you have spent any significant time working in tech, you already know exactly how this loop operates. Modern algorithms are not engineered for human well-being; they are engineered for metrics.
We prioritize retention over actual value.
We choose short-term engagement over cognitive clarity.
We pursue rapid scale while abandoning systemic responsibility.
Somewhere along the way, builders simply stop asking: “Who does this asset actually serve?” The answer is usually too uncomfortable to face, so the systems get shipped anyway.
This creates a dangerous imbalance. AI is dramatically lowering the cost of execution, but ethical decision-making remains as expensive as ever. As a result, we are producing complex digital systems much faster than we can responsibly design them. And that exact gap is where everything breaks.
The Two Kinds of Builders To navigate this landscape, we have to distinguish between two completely different mindsets in the development space:
Coders: Those who expertly implement what is requested. They receive a spec, optimize the lines, and ship the feature.
Architects: Those who look at the blank canvas and decide what should exist.
AI is already replacing the traditional coder, and it will do so completely. But this shift will simultaneously trigger an unprecedented demand for true architects — individuals who understand systems, not just isolated features; who weigh long-term consequences, not just lines of code; and who study governance rather than just standalone products.
The Experiment: Cirqus Heresy This is why I am building Cirqus Heresy.
It is not designed as a standard product, nor is it another attention-hungry platform. It is an intentional experiment in digital governance and creator sovereignty. At its core, the project explores a vital structural shift: moving away from centralized platform control and entering a space of distributed decision-making between autonomous creators.
Architecturally, it integrates a sovereign technical stack:
NFT-based membership for true ownership instead of renting space.
Decentralized storage (IPFS) to ensure content can never be erased by a single entity.
Smart contract escrow logic to secure interactions without trusted third parties.
DAO governance and native dispute resolution protocols.
But the most critical layer of Cirqus Heresy isn't technical. It is structural. It returns to the core question: Who holds the right to decide?
Hexastorm: The Governance Model To answer this, Cirqus Heresy is organized around six core roles. This is not a corporate hierarchy, but a strict distribution of functional archetypes:
Trickster: Destabilizes inertia and questions the assumptions others are afraid to touch.
Inquisitor: Analyzes the landscape and uncovers hidden systemic structures.
Architect: Translates structural philosophy into functional reality.
Alchemist: Navigates chaos to build and stabilize the internal economy.
Oracle: Maintains system equilibrium and binds the disparate parts into a whole.
Mage: Anticipates future shifts and directs critical resources.
Right now, these roles are actively forming. One crucial seat remains entirely empty: The Architect.
The Invitation Most Web3 governance experiments fail because they blindly copy the flaws of legacy systems: they offer voting without systemic understanding, decentralization without strategic clarity, and tokens without personal responsibility.
We are doing something different. We are building a reality where governance is an act of deliberate architectural design.
We are looking for a Technical Co-Founder to step into the role of the Architect. We are not looking for someone to just casually deploy smart contracts. We need a builder who can translate philosophy into protocol, design complex governance logic, and structure decentralized coordination from the ground up.
This role requires a rare combination: a deep foundation in systems thinking, a high comfort level with ambiguity, and an acute awareness of consequences in complex environments.
This is not a traditional job posting. There is no corporate hiring process, no HR screening, and no artificial structure. There is only alignment.
If this resonates with you, explore what has already been built:
cirqusheresy.com/structure
cirqusheresy.com/manifesto
If your inner Architect recognizes this space, leave a single signal in the comments:
“I am the Architect. Ready to build.”
We are not trying to launch another crypto project. We are attempting to answer the one question the rest of the industry avoids: What should we build — and who gets to decide?

Web3 promised us a revolution. Instead, it built a system that manufactures belief.
At some point, the internet stopped feeling human.
Most people barely notice it anymore.
You wake up, unlock your phone, and disappear into an endless stream of synthetic emotions, manufactured outrage, recycled opinions, and algorithmic noise. Everything competes for your attention. Everything wants to shape your perception before you even realize it’s happening.
Web2 turned human identity into data.
Web3 promised an escape.
It promised sovereignty. Ownership. Freedom.
What it built instead was a casino wearing the skin of a revolution.
Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
Most crypto projects today no longer build anything meaningful. They manufacture belief. Entire ecosystems are held together by inflated metrics, paid narratives, fake engagement, and the constant hope that someone else will buy the token after you.
The technology became secondary.
Attention became the real product.
Somewhere along the way, decentralization mutated into a giant liquidity extraction machine — one designed to transfer capital from distracted retail users into the hands of insiders, venture funds, and market makers sophisticated enough to understand the game before everyone else does.
And still, people keep calling it “the future.”
A token is merely a magnifying glass.
If there is nothing underneath except hype, a token only accelerates the collapse. But if there is real infrastructure, real utility, and real conviction beneath the surface, it amplifies everything.
Cirqus Heresy emerged from that realization.
Not from ambition.
Not from startup culture.
And definitely not from the desire to launch another empty crypto brand.
It emerged from exhaustion. From watching the internet slowly turn into a psychological operating system optimized to farm human attention at planetary scale.
At some point, refusing to participate in the spectacle became the only honest option left.
We started noticing that people inside this space naturally divided into two groups.
The first are the People of Hype.
The performers.
The liquidation engines.
They build fast narratives for fast exits. Their world revolves around vanity metrics, artificial urgency, influencer campaigns, and temporary excitement engineered to disappear the moment liquidity dries up.
Everything looks enormous right before it collapses.
Then there are the Architects.
The People of the System.
They think differently. Quietly. Almost invisibly.
They care about infrastructure, security, reputation, resilience, and code that can survive hostile environments. They are less interested in attention and more interested in permanence.
Because real systems are not built for this week’s market cycle.
They are built to survive the next decade.
Physical coordinates no longer matter the way people think they do.
Most modern systems of control are already global, algorithmic, and borderless. You can move to another country and still remain psychologically trapped inside the same machine.
Real sovereignty begins somewhere else.
It begins when you control your keys.
Your attention.
Your information.
Your ability to think without permission.

Web3 is a strange and fascinating place. Here, you can spend weeks engaging in deep philosophical dialogues about freedom, decentralization, and the future of digital communities, only to wake up one night and find someone trying to turn your project into just another short-term memecoin driven by automated bots and an "urgent listing."
I recently went through this exact scenario. Fortunately, cold, analytical reasoning kicked in just in time. Perhaps sharing this experience will save someone else from making a very foolish, and more importantly, irreversible mistake.
How It All Begins: The Illusion of Speed
The script is a classic: a new person enters the project. They usually introduce themselves as a marketer, growth specialist, or an "expert in rapid launches." They are highly confident, speak fast, throw around buzzwords, and promise that coveted momentum—the sudden impulse that will instantly push the project to the top. Their vocabulary constantly revolves around words like visibility, community, listing, and hype.
At an early stage, when you are slowly building a complex architecture brick by brick, this high-energy push sounds appealing. Especially if the project currently lacks a major budget, the audience is trickling in slowly, and you are eager to see some real action. Hundreds of founders have fallen for this mental trap.
The First Warning Sign: A Deficit of Concreteness
Once the primary fog of beautiful promises cleared, I started asking simple, grounded questions:
Who are you? Share your public profile or LinkedIn.What Web3 use cases have you launched before? Where is your verifiable digital footprint?How exactly do you envision the revenue distribution among participants?What is the mathematics behind the tokenomics, and how will contributions be evaluated technically?
Instead of precise answers, I received what the industry commonly refers to as "hot air." Beautifully vague phrasing, abstract reflections on mutual trust, and a persistent, aggressive return to a single thought: "We need to issue and list the token as fast as possible before people lose interest."
This is a critical marker to remember once and for all. Mature, systems-minded specialists always begin by discussing risks, underlying infrastructure, smart contracts, legal frameworks, and security models. Speculators always begin with the listing.
Under-the-Hood Subversion
A couple of days later, it became apparent that this person had wasted no time. Operating on the logic of "it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission," he deployed the infrastructure completely on his own.
He set up Telegram groups, integrated anti-spam bots, and configured a Buy Bot—a tool designed to flash green circles into the chat with every transaction, faking high-volume market activity. Furthermore, he had already listed the project on a trending voting platform.
Most importantly, he deployed the token itself. He simply took the project’s name, logo, and visual style. The blockchain is designed such that anyone can spend a couple of dollars and two minutes to deploy an ERC-20 token on networks like Base or Solana, naming it after your company, your order, or your mother. It takes less time than brewing a cup of coffee.
But when I cross-referenced the contract addresses, everything fell into place. The official contract of our core infrastructure (located on the Zora network) and the contract this marketer created on Base for a "quick pump" were two completely different, entirely unrelated entities:
Official Core Contract (Zora): 0x6886cd19e1d926d26ff7bd687be0889e6398f6b1Marketing Clone Contract (Base): 0x989987ce59c46ec5e819ae89fa688dc216065fc2
The project was being steered entirely in bypass of its creator.
The Mechanics of an Express Scam
This entire operation follows a rudimentary five-step blueprint that sustains 90% of the low-tier cryptocurrency market:
Creating a Shell Token. Total cost—a few dollars in network gas fees.Faking Activity. Bots are flooded into Telegram chats, trending algorithms are triggered, and an illusion of organic momentum is engineered.The Micro-Funding Request. The marketer approaches the founder and states: "Everything is set, the contract is live, the chats are buzzing. We urgently need to buy a premium listing on an aggregator (like Top100listing). It costs just 0.02 ETH (around $70). We have to act fast before the hype dies!"The Trapping Feed. If the founder pays those $70, the token lands on a "Hot Pairs" or "Trending" board for a few hours. Random day-traders and algorithmic sniper bots spot the polished branding, notice the artificial price spike, and throw in small amounts ($10–$20) hoping to flip the asset in five minutes. The price chart green-bars upward.The Final Act. Because the token lacks an actual pre-seeded liquidity pool, a real product, or a long-term dedicated audience, the algorithmic hype burns out in 2 to 3 hours. Trading volume vanishes, and the price drops to absolute zero. The marketer extracts a few hundred dollars in quick profit, deletes his Telegram account, and dissolves back into the web.
The Most Dangerous Part: The Reputational Blow
The most terrifying part of this scheme is not the loss of seventy dollars spent on a shady listing. Nor is it the loss of a few days spent on empty conversations.
The true danger lies in the total annihilation of your name. If a token that turns into worthless dust within a few hours is tied to your official website, your face, your honest name, and your brand, the audience will not hunt down an anonymous Telegram marketer. People will not remember his random username. They will remember you. The stigma of being a "rug pull" or "scam" creator sticks instantly, permanently locking the doors to any serious venture integration in the future. The anon vanishes. Your brand does not.
Code vs. Hype: How to Tell a Builder from a Liquidator
This experience helped me formulate a very sharp distinction between the mindsets of people who approach your venture:
The Systems-Minded Person (Architect/Engineer): Thinks in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, security, and long-term reputation. They talk about trust systems, value distribution mechanisms, robust tokenomics, and how to protect early participants from dilution.The Hype-Marketer (Speed Operator): Thinks exclusively in terms of external metrics. They care only about momentum, trending, visibility, and an immediate launch. For them, a project is just a sales funnel that needs to be rotated as fast as possible.
In the Web3 industry, marketers with a launch-first approach are not necessarily malicious criminals. They are simply a specific class of operators used to working with short-lived memecoins. They can be highly useful, but much later—once the project possesses a functional product, verified code, and a formed culture. Letting them near the wheel during the foundational phase is fatal.
The Core Conclusion
A token is a powerful magnifier. But it can only magnify what you already have under the hood.

Today, I want to begin a new series called Fool Speaks. Hopefully, I’ll gather an audience capable of reading between the lines and possessing at least some sense of humor. So.
When a person is born, they automatically receive a default software package. A rigid set of scripts most people carry until death—that brief little interval humans dramatically call “life.” Some are so sincerely proud of their freedom, as if they personally chose their country, language, religion, flag, and preferred strongman.
The irony is that depending on geographical location, you are expected to sacredly obey absurd, outdated rules invented by long-dead individuals. Try not following them. Various unpleasant consequences will quickly remind you of your place. In some beautiful corners of the planet, people can still be stoned to death according to those wonderfully preserved “traditions.”
Humanity is an astonishing system: people are capable of hating each other for generations simply because a different invisible authority supposedly rules their sky.
Of course, murder and theft should not be ignored or rewarded. Although even here the system manages to twist reality. All you have to do is join some armed structure—a gang or an army—and suddenly what got you imprisoned yesterday becomes heroism today.
Even more fascinating is how the modern world still classifies critically important “threats to the survival of the universe” as criminal offenses. Things like failing to follow medieval rituals or wearing the “wrong” type of clothing.
The state is an incredibly convenient construction. It can spend decades convincing a person they are free while that same person obediently asks permission for almost everything. Except watching short videos and becoming obese. It’s funny how terrified people are of artificial intelligence today, considering most of them have never properly booted up their own.
As for me, I happened to be born in one of those locations where expressing your opinion can be physically hazardous to your health. A place where every new group that reaches power immediately takes control over all information channels, while most of the population happily lives inside a frame they have no desire to escape from. And honestly—isn’t that convenient? Someone else already did the thinking for you.
The crowd passionately debates some idiotic media scandal about a celebrity’s outfit while the murder of ordinary people has become such a routine occurrence that nobody even reacts anymore. Some call this “stability.” Historically, it used to be called simple serfdom.
The least visible cages are always the ones where people are comfortable and well-fed. Under such conditions, it becomes perfectly normal for the life of an entire country to revolve around a single ruler who dominates for decades, while the primary professional skill of his inner circle becomes master-level ass-kissing. The so-called “history of the nation” in places like this is usually composed of myths so grandiose they’ve long surpassed Greece and Rome combined. Unfortunately, they exist mostly on paper and broadcast feeds.
So what exactly am I getting at? What kind of frame does the majority live inside? Whose interests does it serve? Who are they actually serving?
The funniest part is that most people on this planet never consciously choose what they serve at all. Humans are remarkably willing—almost relieved—to rent themselves out. Just hand them a ready-made object of worship and they’ll obediently kneel before it. It’s not only dogs, soldiers, or clergy who serve. Everyone serves something. Most people simply don’t know the name of their owner.
And if we avoid drifting too deeply into esoteric discussions about egregores or informational entities, reality becomes even more absurdly comedic. Serving one’s stomach or the inner monkey demanding cheap dopamine every second through endless scrolling—that’s the “higher mission” of most of the planet’s population.
And what about you, ladies and gentlemen? Is your mission merely to leave behind different shades of biological waste in the material world after your biological expiration date arrives? Or perhaps right now you are storming the ruins of some neighboring country for a beloved ruler or ideology that will lose all relevance within a few years, leaving you with empty hands and a meaningless story? You think you are making a historical choice, while in reality you are simply servicing someone else’s appetite for free.
I am not calling for a struggle against anything. To fight something means automatically submitting to the same frame, feeding it your energy, and acknowledging its importance. Good and evil simply exist. One cannot exist without the other. The world is cynical by nature. And honestly, it’s probably better if a psychopath in an alley attacks a pedophile instead of an innocent person—at least in that scenario everyone involved is keeping each other busy.
I simply believe that if people shift the direction of their attention, the old system will eventually starve on its own. Because attention is the only real currency currently being fought over. What exactly do you devote your attention to every single day? Think carefully. Perhaps that insignificant thing is precisely what you secretly serve.
Doesn’t it seem to you that existing state systems have already begun to rot from the inside? That the old promises of equality and brotherhood have finally stopped functioning? Most likely, nation-states will eventually be replaced by global corporations or entirely different network-based structures.
Fortunately, there are still people who possess their own opinions and follow personal values not because they fear punishment, but because they have an internal compass. Many of them want to create things. Build things. Communicate outside the muddy stream of cheap consumerist hype and instead gather within circles of like-minded individuals. And perhaps our aesthetic will resonate with them.
The vector of attention can be changed.
The Circle is open to those willing to stop renting themselves out, put their inner monkey to sleep, and step outside the common frame.

Prologue
On October 31, 2024, I lost almost all my crypto. 1,088 BNB from an exchange. Tokens from MetaMask, TrustWallet, OKX. Months of airdrop karma — gone.
I thought the story was over. Just an expensive lesson learned.
I was wrong.
On March 9, 2026 — nearly a year and a half later — I opened OpenSea and saw someone else's account on my laptop. Profile "olddragon." Who the hell is this? Nine connected wallets. One of them — mine.
The hacker couldn't resist coming back for more. And possibly exposed his entire network.
But before I tell you how I found him — I have to admit: in this story, I tried my best to make every possible mistake. And I succeeded
Part 1: The Evening That Changed Everything
October 30, 2024. Evening. Pattaya, Thailand.
I was working on my laptop when Google Chrome suddenly crashed. All tabs closed. Browser refused to open properly.
I thought — just a glitch. Getting late anyway, I'm tired. Shut everything down and went to sleep.
At 23:47:51 that same evening, 1,088 BNB was withdrawn from my OKX account to address 0xA2a883ee4E3E31282615Bc6cE09DF32baE72aFF4.
I was asleep.
Between 03:55 and 03:58 on the night of October 31, my MetaMask and TrustWallet were drained. ETH, BNB, MATIC, OP, USDC, and others. Transaction after transaction. Every token of any value — gone overnight.
I was asleep.
Part 2: Morning of Zeros
Woke up. Sat at my laptop. Opened my wallets and couldn't believe my eyes.
Zeros. Zeros everywhere.
MetaMask — empty. Trust Wallet — empty. OKX — empty.
It's a peculiar feeling. Staring at the screen, realizing everything you worked for just... vanished. Not "something went wrong." Not "network error." Just — zero. Even my self-esteem dropped to match.
Huobi survived. Partially. When I logged in, all assets had been converted to BNB. The attacker was inside. Ready to withdraw. Tried his best, but something went wrong for him. SMS confirmation on a separate number stopped the transaction.
One layer of protection worked. One of the many I hadn't bothered to set up.
And the most painful part — it wasn't the money.
It was months of airdrop karma. Gitcoin Passport. All that stuff. Dozens of projects I'd participated in. Time. Effort. Hope.
All measurable in opportunities already lost.
Part 3: My Error Checklist
I made almost every mistake possible in crypto. Here's the complete list — for those who want to follow my path:
✓ Mistake #1: Entered seed phrase on a website
Yes. I did it! Some site with a big prize, I'm a super airdrop hunter, the thrill of the chase, greed. Result: minus $1,000+ in ATOM from Keplr. Instant. Irreversible.
Basic mistake. I knew this stupid rule, but somehow broke it anyway. Quick and dumb. This wasn't related to the account hack. But I did make this idiotic move.
✓ Mistake #2: All eggs in one basket
Google account — the center of everything. Email. Authenticator. Passwords in Chrome — how convenient, right? When it got compromised — everything collapsed at once.
✓ Mistake #3: Physical access
6-8 months before the hack, I had internet problems. Gave my laptop for repair. To someone I didn't know personally. For a whole day.
They installed unlicensed Windows. No antivirus. No protection.
I'm not claiming it was him. But I somehow managed to give physical access to a device with open sessions, wallets, passwords. To someone.
✓ Mistake #4: Google Authenticator only
2FA through Google? Useless if Google itself is compromised.
Huobi survived only because it had SMS on a separate number. Independent channel. The attacker was inside, converted assets — but hit a wall and couldn't withdraw.
✓ Mistake #5: Passwords on computer
Convenient. Deadly.
✓ Mistake #6: Didn't verify transactions
Swapped addresses. Malicious contracts. I signed without looking.
Six out of six. A full house of failures.
Part 4: Race Against the Hacker
But not everything was lost.
Some assets were in staking. Staked coins can't be withdrawn instantly — takes about 20 days to unlock.
When checking my wallets, I saw: someone had already submitted an unstaking request. Our hacker got greedy.
I decided he'd had enough and canceled his request. Immediately created my own.
The race began.
Every day I checked — had he canceled my request? Created a new one? 20 days of this cat-and-mouse game. 20 days of war for my own money.
I set an alarm and got there first. Saved some assets.
But the hacker intercepted some coins too. It was a war with varying success. Victories alternating with defeats.
Main lesson: in this game, you can fight back. Even when everything seems lost.
Part 5: Useless Correspondence
November 5, 2024, I wrote to OKX:
"On the night of 31.10, funds were stolen from my exchange account."
Correspondence began. Identity verification. Screenshots. Proof. Blocks. Unblocks. Weeks of endless back-and-forth with zero results.
Support wasn't at fault. Blockchain works as designed: transactions are irreversible. That's its strength. That's its cruelty. And exactly why it's valuable.
All that correspondence — just to regain access to emptied accounts.
Part 6: A Year of Silence
After the hack, I:
— Reinstalled Windows, did it myself this time, multiple times.
— Created new wallets in a different browser.
— But kept the old, compromised ones.
Why keep them? Airdrops still came. Sometimes NFTs arrived.
I checked periodically. Sometimes intercepted assets before the hacker. Sometimes — didn't.
A year passed relatively quietly. Learning from mistakes. Thought the story was over.
Deleted Trust Wallet long ago. But kept MetaMask — it was linked to too many projects.
Part 7: The NFT Trap
March 2026. Decided to list some airdropped NFTs for sale from the old, compromised wallet.
For a new project, I created a new OpenSea account, added a link to my website, and on March 9 was checking if it worked.
And saw that my laptop was logged into someone else's account.
What a surprise — profile "olddragon." Created April 2021. Asset value — $84.42.
Connected social media:
— Twitter: @lifeisweb10 (luckydragon Flow3 Network, 3,751 followers)
— Instagram: @millefleursdalat (Vietnamese hotel Ngàn Hoa Mille Fleurs)
And nine wallets. One of them — mine.
The hacker spotted my NFTs. Got greedy and decided to combine wallets under one account.
Part 8: Nine Wallets
Here they are — all addresses from the "olddragon" profile:
0xba67d462b4443edc23efc6414f94c49649fb1385 ← MINE
0x52ce8da76d8dcdce46995ee379b957440b35207a
0x452bc70764abc6cef011a3e322e3ac179340bf54
0x9e684b04176772a38c5f929c65789a29257f1cf7
0x12b21e8131b2a7c8af4b87375385db8ce2fbef27
0x1412e5521143f53031a174fe80cbc5564e76e27d
0x83a2fec47453a0337c9bbd403bddd1b42c2d825f
0x9855a2f98d0bbd41fb0c4c8f21f2cb63901088ab
0x711cfcbba1260332b68e7d600e0673453b1128ed
Either this is the hacker's network — nine stolen wallets under one profile.
Or a network of victims — nine people hacked the same way.
Either way — this is information I didn't have for a year and a half.
Part 9: He's Still Here
March 10, 2026. Yesterday.
I checked activity on my compromised MetaMask.
The latest theft was recent — WCT tokens I received as an airdrop. He swapped them to ETH and sent to address 0x2896e...903D7.
March 11 — today — he's already double-dipping with someone else's WCT.
My supposedly dead wallet is living its own life. Some guy is using my wallet as his own. Receives airdrops on my address. Withdraws to his.
He thinks it's safe. I wouldn't be so sure...
Part 10: Checklist "How NOT to Lose Crypto"
I tested every stupid move, and trust me — if you give them a chance, they'll steal even a dollar. They don't just steal millions.
1. SMS confirmation on a separate number
Google Authenticator is useless if Google is compromised. SMS on an independent number — separate channel. Huobi survived only because of this.
2. Diversify protection, not just assets
Different wallets, different exchanges, different emails, different devices. No single point of failure.
3. Hardware wallet — a necessity
Ledger. Trezor. Anything cold. I foolishly didn't use one and lost almost everything.
4. Physical access = full access
Never give anyone a device with open sessions. No one. Not even for repair. Especially for repair.
5. Passwords — not on the computer
Paper, safe, separate device, your own head, finally. Not where you work.
6. Verify every transaction
Address. Amount. Contract. Every time. Tedious? Yes, but cheaper than losing everything! Definitely.
7. Never enter seed phrase online
No website. No verification. No recovery. Never. Legitimate services don't ask.
I knew this rule but broke it. Instantly lost $1,000+ in seconds.
8. Staking is your friend (sometimes)
20 days to unlock gave me time to counterattack. Some assets saved precisely because of this.
9. Karma, passports, reputation — also assets
Gitcoin Passport. Wallet history. Project participation. Irreplaceable. Protect your crypto identity, not just money.
Part 11: Why I'm Telling This
I could have stayed silent. This isn't exactly a heroic story. It's a story of mistakes, losses, and self-soothing partial victories.
But I'm telling it because I'm building a project meant to protect content creators. And it would be weird to talk about protection while hiding my own experience.
The project is called Cirqus Heresy — The Creator Sovereignty Guild.
We're building infrastructure where:
— NFT membership replaces subscriptions (ownership, not rental)
— Smart contracts secure deals (escrow without arbitrary decisions)
— DAO governance (decisions made by creators)
— IPFS storage (content that can't be deleted)
I'm not building this because I'm a security expert. Obviously — I'm not. I tested all the ways to screw up.
But that's exactly why I know what needs protecting. And from what.
Epilogue: The Hunt Continues
I don't know how the investigation will end. Don't know who's behind "olddragon." Don't know if they'll find the hacker. As a trickster and project founder, for me this is just a game for gaining experience and a chance to save someone from mistakes.
And I have:
— Nine wallet addresses
— OpenSea profile with history
— Connected Twitter and Instagram
— DeBank profile from bio
— A year and a half of transactions
— Contact info for the person who had physical access to my laptop
All investigation materials — PDF dossier, screenshots, addresses, full timeline — are documented publicly. Search on GitHub: CirqusHeresy / dragon-hunt
Maybe it leads somewhere. Maybe not. Perhaps this article is being read by a future inquisitor, or an architect — co-creators full of ideas who want to join.
But one thing I can definitely do: tell this story so someone doesn't repeat my mistakes.
Or repeats them — if they really want to. I've provided the guide.
To be continued...
If you recognize your wallet among these nine — contact me.
Maybe we're victims of the same hacker. Maybe together we'll learn more.
Liberatio per electionem — Liberation through choice.
Including the choice to learn from others' mistakes.
And I've already paid for your education.
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