Locked out of a wallet that’s yours to begin with?

Almost all of the “crypto recovery” services you’ll find online are scams. Therefore, let’s define precisely the two things we genuinely assist with. First, there is a lost wallet password: you own the wallet and you’ve got it, either in a file or via an application; however, you simply cannot recall the password/phrase required to unlock access to your wallet. Second, there is a failed hardware wallet: a Ledger or Trezor that doesn’t turn on, does not allow a connection, or is broken. These are both legitimate, technical issues with legitimate resolutions.

The following are not things that we can honestly claim to accomplish, as no lab truthfully could: we cannot recover cryptocurrency that has been lost to theft, scamming or being sent to an incorrect address; these are final transactions. Your path for this is law enforcement, not us. We cannot recreate a seed phrase of which you have no record. We cannot brute-force strong encryption if you do not remember anything about the password used. If one of the above describes your situation, we will inform you truthfully and refund the assessment. We would rather tell you that the above scenarios are beyond any possibility than waste your time/money chasing an impossibility.

This is most of what we do. Years ago, you created a wallet and encrypted it with a password. Now you cannot remember the exact passphrase. However, you do remember something. The first thing you remember is that it was approximately twelve characters long. You remember that it began with the name of a pet. It had a number and a special character at the end. Also, you remember that you always used one of three possible variations. The fact that you can partially remember your original password is the key to defining a realistic search space. Next, we apply significant amounts of computing resources against your own encrypted wallet to go through all reasonable possibilities until it opens.

There are two ways to look at this mathematically: it’s not possible to crack a strong encryption when the password is entirely unknown, as it would require longer than a human life. That’s a job we wouldn’t accept. However, if your password is partially remembered, and you can give us the right length, structure and a few candidate words, we’ll reduce billions of possibilities into something that we can actually test. The more information you provide, the better the odds and the lower the cost will be. We process Bitcoin Core wallet.dat files, Electrum, Exodus, MultiBit, blockchain.info backups, MetaMask and other keystore/JSON wallets, and most desktop wallets, and mobile wallets backed up to a file, that store an encrypted key locally (we do not accept phones or tablets).

If you experience an electronic failure of your hardware wallet (as can happen with any other electronics), there’s a high likelihood you’ll panic. Fortunately, a hardware wallet is not actually where your coins are stored; rather, it’s a highly secure key to accessing them. If you’re experiencing issues with your Ledger or Trezor (it won’t turn on, it won’t pair via USB connection, the screen is cracked/broken, water damage), as long as you’ve safely written down your recovery seed, the solution is usually simple: your coins are safe on the blockchain, and the recovery seed will restore them to a new replacement device. We can assist in ensuring this is done safely and also determine if the dead device is actually the root cause of your issue.

It becomes much more difficult when the recovery seed is lost and the original device is your only copy. At that point, depending on the model and fault, we may be able to either repair a damaged board or recover data from a device that won’t boot; however, be advised that hardware wallets are designed to resist exactly this, and a PIN lockout will often wipe the device by design after a certain number of incorrect attempts. We will evaluate your specific device & model honestly, inform you of what is realistic before you commit & never encourage you to continue guessing a PIN in a manner that could erase it for good.

It may be a matter of the wallet not being locked but rather just stuck. The wallet.dat (or keystore) files were located on a laptop or external hard drive that has either died, had its partition reformatted, become corrupted or been inadvertently erased. This is when our expertise as a data recovery lab crosses into cryptocurrency space: we will first recover the wallet file(s), utilising the same bench and imaging tools used for any failed drive, after which (if the recovered wallet file is also password protected) we will move on to unlocking it. If you have lost access to your coins due to a drive that clicks, does not mount or has been overwritten, please do not continue to use it; each power-up can make it less likely that we will successfully recover the file. Please get a quote first, via phone or through the contact form, then send us the drive and we’ll image it while the drive is still readable.

We work on all of the major cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin and most established cryptocurrencies, since the recovery is done at the wallet and encryption level rather than the cryptocurrency level. Therefore, on the software side, the specific types of wallets supported include Bitcoin Core (wallet.dat), Electrum, Exodus, MultiBit, Armory, blockchain.info, MetaMask and other JSON/keystore-based wallets, along with encrypted desktop wallets generally; additionally, mobile wallets from a backup file (we do not accept phones/tablets for restoration). On the hardware side, we can recover data from both Ledger and Trezor hardware models (across the board), plus other types of cold storage devices. If you are unsure whether your wallet qualifies for our services, then please let us know the details via our free assessment; if there is an issue with your wallet that we cannot resolve, then we will tell you immediately.

Recovery begins with a complimentary, obligation-free assessment. All you have to do is advise us of the type of wallet and describe the problem that occurred. For example, if the problem arose as a result of a forgotten password, give us as much information as possible regarding the password. Similarly, for a hardware wallet, provide the make/model and description of the failure. Based on this information, we will be able to inform you honestly as to whether recovery is worth attempting and give you some indication of what would be involved. Since all cryptocurrency recovery work is either done digitally or sent through the post, we do not require you to be local. This has allowed us to assist clients located throughout the entire UK & Ireland, and further afield, utilising secure file transfers or sending devices/drives through the post.

The cost for recovery services is set per case. In other words, it can’t be just one price for all, because recovering a password that you mostly remember and restoring a device that has been severely damaged require completely different amounts of work. We provide you with a quote prior to starting any work that will incur a charge. And we’ll never ask for your seed phrase or private keys up front. Nor will we ask you to send us money (a very high amount) so we can “unfreeze” your recovered funds: those are characteristics of many of the scams that are the exact opposite of what we do. You have complete control of your wallet at all times; we recover the access, you hold the keys.