How To Recover Lost Cryptocurrency Wallets?

Our wealth in terms of currency has been digitized through credit cards and UPI for quite a while now and as newer innovations in technology are taking over everything, our form of currency has gained a new encrypted form.

Cryptocurrencies have ever grown since its inception in 2009 amid growing concerns. It has a growing market value and greater profit compared to our tangible way of money transactions, but many risks also come with it. 

It is a panic situation even if you lose your physical wallet with a few cents in it. But imagine losing a whole account of assets. That is when we started securing everything as possible through various forms. What about losing your crypto wallet?

Crypto trading requires great research on what platform to choose, where to trade, and gain profit from it without risks. It is crucial to know about account recovery in case it is lost. This article will guide you through the information and steps you need to know to recover a crypto wallet. 

Understanding the basic concepts of a crypto wallet

Crypto wallets are lockers for your digital assets. They can be digital or hardware.

• Digital wallets: The keys to your cryptocurrencies are stored online and are convenient for quicker transactions. However as they are stored online, it is more prone to hacking. 
• Hardware wallets: These are devices that are like physical lockers for your digital currency and store private keys. 

There are keys to these wallets just like any physical lockers. 

• Public key: It is like a bank account number that can be shared to make transactions. 
• Private key: It is like a password and should not be shared with anyone. Only the person who holds the account has access to this string of letters and numbers which are needed just like a UPI pin for access to the digital money. 

Both these keys are issued when you own a crypto and can be stored based on the use. For easy access, it can be stored in a digital wallet, and for safeguarding your account from hackers, it can be stored in hardware wallets that are not connected to the internet. But what if you lose your private key to your wallet? There is a backup password called a seed phrase.

• Seed phrase: It is a sequence of random words that serve as access or recovery to the crypto wallets when needed. They are also known as recovery phrases or mnemonic phrases, that are generated by the wallet software and should be safeguarded somewhere physical. 

Safeguarding seed phrase and recovery with them

If you lost your private key to the wallet and still have a seed phrase, recovery is easy. Losing this would make recovery way harder. It is a more readable and humane version of a password than a private key. Their role of access to the wallet makes them prone to hacking, so safeguarding this is very important. Here are some ways to safeguard your seed phrase:

• Keep the seed phrase in a written piece of paper or other physical documents in multiple locations like a home or a bank locker that are safe. It is better to store them in water and fireproof lockers. 
• If you are good at memorizing, then it is always good to trust your brain.
• Regularly check if they are accessible and not damaged or lost. 
• Avoid storing them in digital options like computers or smartphones as they are prone to hacking, otherwise, encrypt the phrase before storing and use strong passwords and two-factor authentication. 
• Seed phrases are like a master key to your wallet, so avoid sharing them with anyone.

Recovering the crypto wallet when you have access to the seed phrase is easy with only a few steps.

• Open the wallet application on your device 
• Select the ‘add existing wallet’ option or the ‘recover wallet’ option.
• Type the seed phrase manually.
• Now you can create a new password and secure your wallet. 

Your wallet will be linked to the blockchain in a few seconds. 

Recovering the wallet without a seed phrase

Recovery without a seed phrase is hard in crypto. There is a famous phrase in the crypto market, “not your keys, not your crypto”. There are some possible ways to get your wallet back, but they are not reliable always. 

• Contact wallet software support: The wallet providers may be able to do something, so contact their customer support. But this may not always help.
• Backup: Some wallets let their users use cloud services, so backing up may help to regain the recovery phase. However, storing in the cloud is a riskier option as they are prone to hacking. 
• Check old devices and recovery tools: If you are lucky, you might find the wallet installed in any of your old devices. If you have lost the device or the data stored in it, try recovering using data recovery tools. 
• Professional recovery services: Some professionals specialize in crypto recovery and might help assist. However, these services are costly and may not always be successful. 

Substituting Seed Phrases

There are many cases reported about losing crypto wallets worth millions of dollars and not being able to recover them without the seed phrase. This has paved the way for new user-friendly options, especially for decentralized platforms. 

• Multi-signature wallets: Multi-signature wallets require multiple private keys for a transaction. Even if one key is stolen or lost, the wallet can still be secured with the other keys. 
• HSMs: Hardware security modules (HSMs) are devices that act as lockers to secure and organize passwords while safeguarding from online hackers.
• Biometric authentication: Our unique physical features like fingerprints, iris, and facial recognition are used to authenticate and get access to the crypto wallet. 

Conclusion

Technology is evolving day by day, and the ways to secure your digital currencies will also get better over time. The easiest way is to safeguard your seed phrase using any convenient method. Writing down on paper and storing them in multiple places and bank lockers are the most advised methods to prevent losing seed phrases.

New methods to get access to crypto wallets without a seed phase are also developing like key storage devices and biometric authentication. This would reduce the complexity of using and accessing crypto.