Welp…I’m a dumb-ass but I got lucky. If you are panicking about restoring a wallet, calm down. Breath. Be aware of scams.

I'm sure there are plenty who are already shaking their heads at me. It's such an obvious rookie mistake.

So I'm not totally new to the cryptosphere. I'm starting to get involved more in the world and was allowed in on a testnet. I went through the process of adding the network and when I did, I couldn't figure out how to get back to the mainnet. Metamask wasn't switching back. I thought I must have fucked myself. On little sleep and in the wee hours of the morning, I started to panic. Restore metamask. Gotta do it.

I get on my browser and type in metamask. First result is "restore-metamask.com" I'm still screaming "FUCKING MORON!" at myself for this, but I clicked it.

Looks official. I mean they have the metamask fox logo. Not just anyone can have a fuck-damn fox on their homepage. Real nice site. I don't even register what I've done. It asks for a seed phrase. I oblige. The whole damn thing I type out, without a second thought.

I get into my wallet. My funds are…there. but I can't click anything. No other options. Right then, a wave of gut wrenching realization came over me, a minute late.

I grab my phone and uninstall metamask, then reinstall it, as I had read this is another way to get back to the mainnet. I go through the proper process to restore and I get into my wallet. Everything is still there. Quickly, I transfer all I can, except a little eth for gas fees. After cleaning out into a new wallet, I left $13 of ETH in the metamask. A fine bit of bait to see if my suspicions (well founded) were accurate (they were). Minutes later, I check and it's gone. They got in. They took all they could. I'm lucky I had a very brief window of opportunity to move my bags to a different wallet.

All this is really embarrassing to throw down on the table for y'all, but I figured if I can share my $13 dollar lesson with just one more sleep deprived newbie, it'll not be a total waste. Be safe.