One of the most frustrating things you can experience as a cryptocurrency holder is somehow losing your wallet. This can happen any number of ways. And when it does, you need to know how crypto wallet recovery works. If you lose your wallet or are unable to get back into your wallet, you risk losing whatever currency is in your account. Depending on how much you have, you could instantly lose a small fortune—or a big one.
By design, getting back into a lost or damaged wallet is very difficult. The best cryptocurrency wallets are designed for ultimate encryption and security.
They’re built to be hard to break into, and all that security can backfire when you’re suddenly locked out of your wallet. If that happens, you’ll likely find yourself scrambling to discover how crypto wallet recovery works.
Fortunately, there are a number of ways to break back into a lost wallet. In fact, experts who know how crypto wallet recovery works are beginning to create a small industry specifically for wallet recovery specialists.
One way or another, to figure out how to get back into a lost or damaged wallet, you need to know the proper steps for recovery. Here’s everything you need to know.
Losing Your Crypto Wallet
Before anything else, let’s go over how one may lose access to their crypto wallet. Specifically, this advice applies to hot wallets, which are connected to the internet. There are a number of reasons why you might lose access:
Sometimes, wallets are lost because of physical damage to a computer or hard drive. In this case, if login credentials weren’t saved anywhere else, one may not be able to get back into their wallet after their computer is damaged.
Similarly, people have lost access to their wallets because they get hacked or scammed. Additionally, people sometimes find themselves dealing with a corrupt database.
In one way or another, if you somehow lose your password, or someone corrupts your database, you could get locked out of your wallet. If that happens, and you can’t immediately recover your login credentials, your tokens and coins could end up sitting in your wallet inaccessibly.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing is more common than you might think. Many experts estimate that somewhere around 4 million Bitcoin (BTC) have been lost. While the precise way a person loses their currency differs, what’s clear is that losing crypto wallets is a prevalent occurrence.
Knowing how you lost your wallet is the first step in figuring out to go about the recovery process.
How Crypto Wallet Recovery Works: The Basics
The method for recovering a wallet depends on how you lost it in the first place. If it’s a physical damage problem, then you’ll have to try to extract whatever data you can from your damaged hard drive. It’s helpful to consult data recovery experts for this, as they may have more tools and resources than you do on your own.
If you’ve lost your password seed words, you may need to hire a crypto wallet recovery company. These companies specialize in digital tools designed to quickly generate a massive range of possible passwords. In many cases, these efforts prove successful.
Often people lose access to their wallets when files get deleted or hard drives are corrupted. Fortunately, there are still some backdoors to recovering lost data in such situations.
For starters, most hard drives actually store deleted files until you overwrite them. During that period, you can run undelete tools to recover lost login credentials.
Similarly, some operating systems automatically save files and folders as part of automated backup programs. In this scenario, you can use recovery software to locate saved materials and get back into them.
Ultimately, the method you use depends on how you lost your data. The key takeaway is that there are always clever workarounds that can restore your access to your wallet.
Crypto Wallet Recovery Services and Companies
As crypto becomes more popular, some people are becoming experts at recovering lost wallets. In some cases, they’re even offering these services as a business. This includes companies like walltrecovery.info, walletrecoveryservices.com, and others.
If you’re facing a really challenging case, or if you’re not very tech savvy, you may want to explore working with a recovery company.
Here’s what you can expect:
- You’ll begin with some sort of interview. The more information you can give them the better. Doing so will help them come up with a recovery plan that’s right for you.
- Once the company understands your unique situation, they’ll come up with a strategy. They will ask you for whatever materials they need. For example, you may have to mail them your damaged hard drive. Whatever the case, give them all materials and information quickly.
- The company will carry out their plan. This could be a number of things. In fact, since crypto wallet recovery is so new, they might have to invent an entirely new strategy. Generally, you can expect them to focus on recovering data from damaged hardware, repairing corrupted files, or cracking your passwords. In many cases, the company will create an algorithm to run through a huge range of possible passwords.
- The company will give you back your wallet. When they crack back into your wallet, a reliable company will immediately notify you. They will also give you clear directions for how they plan to return your wallet safely and securely.
Tips to Avoid Losing Your Wallet
Watch out for scams aimed at stealing your wallet and locking you out. Some of the most common scams include:
- Malicious wallet software. Always use well established and widely recognized wallets to store your cryptocurrency.
- Fraudulent crypto companies. Look out for phony wallets, fake exchanges, or companies that claim to cash out currencies but in reality, simply steal your data and currency. Before providing any data, do your research. As much as possible, stick with well-known crypto companies.
- Scammers selling fake wallets. Some scammers claim to be selling locked wallets for dirt cheap. People will sometimes buy these wallets, believing they can break into the wallet and claim whatever currency it holds. But these fake wallets don’t actually hold anything. The scammer simply pockets money from the sale and disappears.
- Illegal mining services. In some cases, people set up fake companies offering huge payouts. In the end, these scams don’t mine anything. Rather, they take your data, steal your coins, and disappear.
Crypto Wallet Support: A Growing Industry
Security is one of the biggest strengths of cryptocurrency, thanks to blockchain. At every level, developers carefully designed their cryptos maximum security. This is generally a good thing.
Though, it can sometimes become a problem when a wallet locks out its user. In the world of crypto, there’s no customer service you can call up to have your account unlocked. It’s much more complicated than that.
If you want to understand how crypto wallet recovery works, you need to understand clearly how you lost access in the first place. This dictates the best strategy for recovering your wallet. The key is to construct a recovery strategy that will best respond to the specific way in which you lost your wallet. Always remember, there are a growing number of experts there to help. If you can’t figure out how to recover your wallet, spend some time researching wallet recovery companies.
