Cautionary tale on how to get coins stolen

Recently I found some Bitcoin SV in my Coinbase account. I decided to retrieve them and convert them to BTC. All I managed to do was get them stolen. Here is what happened.

Log of events leading to my stupid loss of Bitcoin SV coins.

1. I discovered the Bitcoin SV in my Coinbase account. The only option they provided for this coin was to send it somewhere.
2. I wanted to convert the coins to BTC in my blockchain.com account. But they don't support BSV.
3. I found a site, changenow, that would convert the coins.
4. Foolishly, I did not test the site. When it asked for the receiving address, I apparently entered blockchains address. The coins were sent directly to blockchain.com without converting to BTC.
5. Since blockchain.com doesn't handle BSV, they never received them. The coins were in limbo on the Blockchain SV transaction chain.
6. I searched the internet trying to find a solution to this problem. I could not find a simple solution.
7. I contacted blockchain.com, describing the problem. Their customer support responded with a description of the situation and several suggestions. Their response was excellent.
8. Based on one of their suggestions, I decided to use a desktop wallet that supported Bitcoin SV. By creating the wallet with the 12 secret words from my blockchain.com wallet, I hoped the desktop wallet would retrieve the coins.
9. Recognizing the risk, I basically emptied my blockchain.com wallet.
10. Since I had used Electrum, I decided to use their SV wallet.
11. I found it, downloaded Electrum-BSV-4.0.4.exe, installed it. and elected to create the wallet by importing the Bitcoin SV secret words.
12. After I entered the 12 words, the program failed to connect to the internet, so I tried again, and it failed again.
13. I moved on to atomcwallet.exe. The wallet it created had its own 12 words, so I restored a wallet with the 12 words. My coins did not appear so once again I moved on.
14. My next choice was Exodus on my Windows 10 computer.
15. I created my wallets using the 12 words from my blockchain.com account. Effectively I created a clone of that account. I entered the words manually.
16. I did a refresh in Exodus and the BSV coins appeared.
17. Exodus has an exchange feature where you can convert one coin for another. There is a fee for this.
18. Since I had pretty much emptied my blockchain.com before starting the process, I didn't have enough to cover the exchange fee.
19. I transferred a small amount of BTC from Coinbase to cover the fee.
20. I used the program to exchange the BSV for BTC. The exchange was going to take a while, so I closed the program.
21. When I returned a few hours later I could see that the exchange had occurred, but the BTC had been sent somewhere.
22. I was confused and ultimately contacted the Exodus support team.
23. A few hours later the rest of my BTC disappeared.

I worked for a while with the Exodus support team. Despite their excellent support, ultimately the coins were stolen in step 12 and not recoverable.

I made two mistakes as indicated in steps 4 and 12. In step 4, I should have tested the conversion with a small amount so I would understand the process. Had I done so, none of the rest would have been necessary. In step 12, I did not find the real Electrum SV product, but one apparently designed to steal your coins.

Ultimately, I did find an excellent desktop wallet, Exodus, with a great support team. I'll be using them in the future. I also learned more about crypto currencies and blockchain during the process. It's too bad the tuition was so dammed high.

If you care to comment, contact me at ole44bill@gmail.com.