Bitcoiners and crypto enthusiasts have been garnering immense wealth over the past few months. Although many have made high incomes, others have lost access to their crypto because they forgot passphrases and passwords.
For instance, The New York Times, on January 21st, 2021, stated that over $140 billion worth of BTC, i.e., around 20% of BTC in circulation, is locked and probably irrecoverable. NYT also mentioned the troubles of Mr. Stephan Thomas, who lost his wallet containing 7,002 bitcoins. It’s quite clear that a lost password is probably the biggest menace of the crypto ecosystem.
Recently, new projects have been joining the crypto world, promising to help users recover their lost seed phrases, keys, wallets, and crypto-assets. Keep reading to see how the recovery works.
How Does Passphrase Recovery Work?
As aforementioned, it is possible to recover the details, crypto, and wallet. However, there is a need to work with an experienced team that has expertise in recovery.
Foremost, it would help if you had your 12-word mnemonic phrase to generate the private key. However, if you do not have your 12-word mnemonic, you can give the best guess of the words, and the tools below will generate the words. All recovery tools require a user to have an idea of their 12-word mnemonic for any successful recovery.
Depending on your guess’s accuracy, the process of recovery may take some time but ultimately worth it. Below are some of the tools you can use for wallet, crypto and password, and passphrase recovery.
BTCRecover
BTCrecover is perhaps the most prominent seed and passphrase recovery option in the crypto world. The platform is a product of the Free Software Foundation found in Boston, USA. The company’s license number is MA 02110-1301 USA.
It provides several recovery services for crypto assets top being password/passphrase and seed recovery options. Among this platforms best features include;
- Seed/passphrase recovery for currencies like Bitcoin, bitcoin cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Dash, Monacoin, Digibytem Zilliqa, Ripple, etc.,
- Mnemonic recovery for wallets including, Electron, Electron cash, Android bitcoin wallets, Breadwallet, Hive in Android, etc. The platform supports wallets like Trezor Coinomi, ledger, Exodus, MyEtherWallet, Blockchain.com, etc.
- Password recovery options for Bitcoin wallets like bitcoin core, Multibit HD, Electrum, etc
- The platform also provides altcoin wallet password recovery for Litecoin core, electron cash, etc.
Bitcoin Recovery Co.
Another famous key recovery platform is Bitcoinrecovery.co. The platform is a product of a partnership between Bukh Law Firm and Cybersec.
Bukh Law Firm is a famous firm that majors in cyber law. The presence of Cyber laws releases trust to the dealing parties.
Cybersec is a group of former hackers with expertise in programming and hacking. The new group of reformed hackers uses the expertise they used earlier in crime to recover your funds.
Bitcoin, Eth, and other cryptos programming is very complicated and almost immune to cracking. As such, this group is the best chance you have to recover your passphrase.
The fee charged in the platform starts from about 15% of the recovered amount. The whole process is as follows;
- They assess the reason why you cannot access your account.
- Determine the possibility of the recovery of the coins
- Leverage Bukh law firm as an Escrow service
- Begin recovery efforts using their self-made tools.
- Returning your assets
Datarecovery.com
Datarecovery.com is a 3rd option for recovering lost crypto and wallets. The company has been operating since 1999 under a Canadian license.
Although earlier the company focused on recovering non-crypto data, from hardware to cell phones and iPhones, this platform recently introduced the crypto recovery option. Among the crypto assets recoverable include ether, Litecoin, Zcash, bitcoin cash, Dash, Ripple, and bitcoin.
There are a variety of scenarios where they can recover your crypto, including;
- Deleted wallets- Since, at times, people lose wallets because of formatting or resetting their devices, this platform offers successful data recovery without any loss. However, immediately you accidentally delete your wallet, turn off the device to avoid permanence.
- Forgotten passwords- this platform can help you retrieve your password in a matter of days.
- Hardware failure- The platform can quickly recover data from Hardware like SSDs, Raid arrays, and HDDs.
- Wallet corruption- In case of wallet corruption caused by data or software error, Datarecovery.com can help you access your wallet within hours.
The complexity of your case determines the rates charged by the platform. However, they only charge users once they complete the recovery process.
Conclusion
Although the crypto space is technologically advanced, the issues revolving around lost crypto have been menacing to the investors. Many already lost hope after unsuccessfully trying multiple recovery options. However, it seems like there is a big possibility that users can recover their passphrases and other crucial details to gain access to their crypto assets.
Many platforms have joined the crypto world to offer the services, and among them are the three aforementioned, i.e., BTCrecover, Bitcoinrecovery, and datarecovery.com. These three have been in the industry for some time and managed to help some investors.
Other platforms like cryptoassetrecovery.com, keychainx.io, lostcryptowallet.io, and walletrecovery.nl also promise to allow users to recover their crypto. However, every investor must be very keen when using the platforms to avoid scams.