That holiday taught me the most expensive lesson — a seemingly ordinary hotel Wi-Fi connection almost destroyed my entire crypto holdings.

Here's what happened. During the year-end holiday, I stayed with my family at a five-star hotel for three days. I initially planned to relax, but I couldn’t resist bringing my laptop along to handle some work in my spare time. My wife advised me not to bother, and looking back, I really should have listened to her.

Like most people, I connected to the hotel’s public Wi-Fi — a network that requires no password, just authentication through a portal. Then I went about my usual routine: scrolling social media, checking my wallet balance, browsing Discord and Telegram — nothing out of the ordinary. I thought there was no risk involved.

But the next day, after checking out, my crypto wallet was completely drained.

I was stunned. I hadn’t clicked any phishing links, signed any suspicious transactions, or even created a new wallet. What exactly happened? I spent hours retracing my steps and even hired a security expert to review the entire process. That’s when I finally realized — the root cause was that seemingly harmless public Wi-Fi.

It turned out the problem stemmed from a combination of a public network environment, a carefully planned phone call, and a series of foolish judgment errors on my part. These three factors together created a perfect attack chain.

This experience made me realize that no matter how cautious you are, protecting crypto assets is never overkill. The risks of public Wi-Fi are severely underestimated by most people. If you, like me, often use public networks when outside, especially when handling anything related to your crypto wallets, always use your phone’s hotspot instead — don’t take chances.

Some mistakes come with a heavy price.