Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called for improved wallet security to prevent crypto losses from non-theft incidents.

His concerns highlight the need for wallet providers to address losses from forgotten passwords, lost devices, and software failures.

Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called for improved wallet security measures to prevent crypto losses from non-theft incidents.

In a recent post, Buterin expressed concern over crypto users encountering financial setbacks due to their own actions, such as forgetting passwords or losing devices, leading to irretrievable losses of digital assets.

Buterin's concerns highlight the need for wallet providers to address these issues.

Most crypto users face financial losses due to human errors. These errors, in combination with the inability to recover passwords or erase files accidentally, result in unreported non-theft-related losses.

Buterin noted that users tend to conceal such incidents as they feel responsible. However, he believes that preventing these risks should receive the same attention as thwarting hacking attempts.

“The vast majority of crypto users, unfortunately, have encountered financial setbacks due to their own actions: forgetting a password, upgrading a phone and not having a backup written down, accidentally erasing a file, and similar mishaps, which in the worst cases can lead to the permanent loss of all their crypto,” Buterin said.

“We need to be thinking about how to build crypto wallets and services with usable security measures that users would actually want to use to prevent these types of losses,” he added.

Buterin further suggested that enhanced asset recovery protocols would decrease these security issues. He also encouraged the crypto community to focus on long-term solutions that ensure asset safety.

“If we can build crypto systems where even if someone manages to hack the president of the United States and make him post a statement saying to transfer all the national treasury into a given Bitcoin address, we still wouldn’t be able to steal any of the funds, then we will have reached a level of security that is truly useful,” Buterin concluded.

Buterin's insights come as Ethereum encountered unexpected finalization issues with the Pectra upgrade deployed on the Holesky testnet.

The testnet encountered delays in the upgrade timeline as it could not establish agreement regarding block validation, setting back the system from completing its finalization stage.

Technical problems need to be overcome before continuing the mainnet rollout. Buterin and the team are working to perfect the Pectra system contracts to reduce possible security threats.

The Pectra upgrade aims to enhance network security and performance. To ensure optimal launch conditions, Ethereum conducted multiple audits and a formal verification process to certify the system's integrity and optimal functionality.

This review focused on analyzing and fixing significant security weaknesses of the system. Analysis of the findings resulted in vital improvements that went into effect before the system upgrade.