Topic: Can Stolen Bitcoin Be Recovered (Read 591 times)

Bitcoin is easy to track but recovery is more difficult not even back.
Bcz we all working as a software,nor in hardware, wallet's, transaction,phrase all's are in digital authority.
So it's necessary to be quiet intelligent if you are Bitcoin investor.

Well I like this guidelines because it is going to make people more careful, but on the other hand people who stole others Bitcoin has in some cases be caught, yes crypto-currency is decentralized especially when you leave you bitcoin lieing in an Account with out any implicating account, but some trying to convert a stolen Bitcoin or Crypto-currency to Fiat has been caught through final receivers details. This would happen more in a non decentralized exchange.

to say the fact you don't really need to believe in every item projected on social media as crypto news, some may be intended to claim more victims, think of it in this direction, why do they have to steal it in the first place, it's a rare thing that we all know when crime is done that the main aim targeted is to loot or steal what does not belong to them, in this case, they may be framing all these stories we don't know, all we see is thier publication online, so why should we believe it, on a norms, every transaction is available for public view on the distributed ledger, if using a centralized exchange then something related to block user account is possible when due process is followed involving government.

there's whale alert as well that can signal any massive transaction carried out on the blockchain as well which could be traced when reported, but don't you think the hackers are now smarter than all these, don't you also think that the so called professionals in recovering stolen coins may be the hackers or scammers, just be careful, if you don't make a mistake from your end at first place there won't be need for all these.

And you don't see the problem here? Let's say someone's account gets hacked and the attacker steals some bitcoin. They then decided to swap that bitcoin for some altcoin. The other user in the trade, who is completely innocent, legitimately trades his altcoin for this bitcoin. He then takes that bitcoin and heads down the street to his local electronics store which accepts bitcoin, and buys some new piece of hardware with that bitcoin, again all above board. The electronics store decides to swap that bitcoin to fiat to be used to pay some salaries. The electronics store deposits this bitcoin to a centralized exchange, and then the exchange freezes their account and seizes the "stolen" bitcoin, leaving the perfectly honest electronics store out of pocket and the perfectly honest shopper banned from the store forever.

This is the basis of why blockchain analysis is so deeply flawed. Any bitcoin transaction could be that bitcoin changing hands in a completely legal way. With the addition of Lightning and now some wallets which allow users to swap private keys, bitcoin could be changing hands in a completely legal way even without an on chain transaction.

Nobody treats cash like this. Nobody tests every bill you hand them for traces of cocaine or other drugs, despite that being incredibly prevalent, or looks at the serial number and checks against a database of stolen serial numbers. Why would we treat bitcoin like this?

Retrieving the lost coin is actually possible but it is a process that will take a long time. One will ask how and i will explain with the following steps:

• Bitcoin is a public ledger so the movement of the coin was appended on the blockchain
• The coin will not remain in the hackers account for too long he will definitely move it to another address over time which will be appended as well
• Some day the coin will be moved to an exchange where it will be traded for fiat
• Even if this doesn't happen the coin will be sent to some one who will want to trade for fiat and that way the link will extend

In as much as bitcoin is pseudonymous it doesn't stop it from been traced it only takes a while and time because every transaction done on the blockchain is timestamped

This is a good topic for discussion. Unlike traditional fiat money which can be tracked, traced and recovered upon report of theft or laundry but I still have to be clear with OP are you sure it isn't an exchange the Bitcoin you are talking about was recovered because I am very much sure that once their is migration or movement of coin from a private wallet out to another private wallet which you have no access to and you do not know the owner of the wallet may be the wallet was hacked, we all know that fund is gone and gone forever unless it is tracked to a third-party wallet eg exchange and immediately reported then the exchange can take it up from there by freezing that account and not allowing any movement on and from that wallet if there is a substantial evidence or proof of theft or hack. I strongly believe OP understand what I am saying.
Due to the sophisticated blockchain technology, it is very hard to be able to trace or track a stolen fund onchain unless if the details of the hacker is exposed or know di as to recover the funds. Now I ask the big hacks that have been going on for long have anyone been apprehended to be a prime suspect with verifiable fact or proof?

The conversation was about no stolen Bitcoin cannot be recovered and not about the level of investigation the US Federal police executed before they could find the loophole of getting the suspect behind the stolen Bitcoin which is the reason why I said it depends on the theft knowledge about privacy provider network. Mind you, some BTC wallets expose user IP addresses.
Nevertheless, I never said they were able to undo any Bitcoin transaction but with the help of Federal police, blockchain analysis expert, and local authority Bitfinex found the suspect.

If Bitcoin is somehow hacked or stolen, it is often impossible to recover it. The only reason is that there is nothing here except the wallet address. We can track those assets where it is transferred. If it is taken on a centralized exchange in most causes it is possible to find out but hacker won’t do this. Usually they use decentralized exchange where no information is available. If someone wants to help you in such an event, you have to be more careful about the facilitator and what is his intention.

Great I see now what you meant by that. A desperate person who have been scammed wouldn’t bother to go through the comment section of the post but would immediately want to contact the recovery expert to get their stolen bitcoin back in a bid of a rush.


OP edited now

Sir I had the same problem with my MetaMask until I contacted Lord Knox Harrington on Digg.

He managed to get me back 50% of my shitcoins, and for that I am forever grateful.

Ah, I see.  That would be appropriate for some sort of a scam investigation thread in one of the subforums for that purpose, if presented differently; but that is not the situation here.

I suggest you reread your OP with fresh eyes, as if you were a different person reading it—perhaps read it as if you were a total newbie who just had some money stolen, and is desperate to get it back.  OP basically presents a testimonial alleging that someone with that e-mail address had successfully “recovered” 7.0938 BTC.  It is presented in the form of asking if that’s possible, but it does not sound very skeptical.  To a neutral reading by someone who’s not you, it tends to come off very differently than you say you intend.

(Note:  OP is currently unedited.)

I supplied the contact information only to identify the address of such people if one were to come across that. There is no other purpose but this. I will modify the OP and remove the contact information if there is any chance that this may lead newcomers astray and fall for such again.

So, why did you include the type of contact information that these types of scammers seek to advertise—which they often advertise by slipping into other discussions, while pretending it’s not theirs?

That was naïve at best.  I suggest that you edit OP to redact the e-mail address.

Am not terrifically naive or spamming for a scam here. I don’t promote or appreciate scammers in anyway. I posted it in order to verify the veracity of those testimonials and to protect myself and other people (especially newcomers) not to fall victims of such.

That's not the case for the average Joe that got his funds stolen, though. Even government officials may have trouble recovering stolen cryptocurrencies, however, there are a few instances of retrieving stolen Bitcoin. One of them is the robbery of 120,000 Bitcoin after breaching the Bitfinex exchange in 2016, only 94,000 was repossessed though.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60310783

Things have been very simple with the innovation, and the ease of creating a wallet is made through different applications. So, usage of mixing services is not at all big deal. Stolen funds can be recovered only by the government agencies and this too happens when their arises suspicion.

Knock off the condescension from your state of ignorance.  I am pretty sure that most people calling out a scam here are perfectly well aware of that.  Are you aware that that only happened because after an intensive, expensive, years-long investigation, the U.S. Federal police found that the persons holding the coins had a massive failure of basic opsec?  Their private keys were floating around in the clouds, LOL.  That is tantamount to observing that if a hacker steals coins, the hacker can also get hacked to steal the coins back.  N.b. that the police did not and could not undo any Bitcoin transactions.

The fact remains:  Bitcoin transactions are irrevocable.  Stolen coins cannot be recovered.  Without exception, anyone offering a service to “recover” stolen bitcoins is a scammer.

First, this topic was about online scammers using the idea of helping people who are victims of crypto scammers to get back their lost coins.
Yes, Bitcoin is decentralized but stolen BTC can still be recovered however, it all depends on the knowledge of the scammer itself about the use of privacy service.
Are you unaware of the news about the suspect of the fund which was stolen from the exchange Bitfinex?

Quite sketchy looking website filled with ads. Bitcoin is not PayPal mate, once it's sent, it's over. Nothing you can actually do to recover your funds. As others have already mentioned, Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, even someone with little experience could use a mixing service, such as Chipmixer, and avoiding any ties with the stolen/compromised funds.

For some reason, I feel that an incident like this is fake and the possibility is very small.
When someone loses their Bitcoin because it is stolen, then their chances of getting it back are very small. It could be that they have transferred to another wallet and sold it in an exchange. Moreover, if someone can recover the Bitcoin, doesn't that mean that person also hacked the thief's wallet? And if this is the case, do they really want to help rather than the Bitcoin they get for themselves?
Moreover, if the victim is actually asked for a certain fee for the recovery, this could even be another type of fraud.

I don't know how many times I have come across such lines... "I lost 10BTC, but then I contacted someone who helped me retrieve the stolen Bitcoin, you can also contact him - scammer @ gmail.com"

It's  a common scam, known as bitcoin or crypto recovery scam. The truth is they ask for a service fee in advance and once you pay them. That's it. You are scammed once more.

Is OP intentionally spamming for a scam here, or just terrifically naïve in a way that accidentally promotes a scam?

Would a newbie inquiring in good faith so smoothly slip in this breathless testimonial in the middle of an ostensible question, and conveniently just so happen to include a bad link plus a scammer’s contact address where desperate newbies can get scammed? 🤔

No, you cannot recover any bitcoin after doing a transaction, and no matters even if the bitcoins are stolen from someone because that's decentralized and cannot be controlled by anyone to check if the bitcoins are stolen and get them back to that person that's why you see most people are saying any bitcoin transaction is irreversible and cannot be reversed in any condition even if the bitcoin is getting used by a terrorist still you cannot do anything about and all they can do is to track the transaction and try to trace everything to catch their red hand otherwise and in any condition that's impossible to do.

That is a bogus story, unless the hacker decided to return the money out of his own volition once your coins are out of an address you control then it is impossible to recover them, do not believe the people that say that they can because they are lying or they are scammers themselves, the fact that bitcoin transactions are irreversible is a feature and not a bug, as in this way no one can take what it is rightfully yours, but this means that you need to take care of your coins, otherwise something like this can happen to you.

Obviously people will never be easily impressed by the fact that we could figure out what they are up to, they will just chalk that up to being lucky. Because, they did managed to convince some people.

If you try to scam 20 million people, and only 100 people falls for it, that will "look" like you failed to 19 million 999 thousand 900 people, but for that 100 people who spent a total of tens of thousands of dollars, that would look like you were a great scammer and that is who they are after. All in all this was a weak try, but if he could take this and put it all over online, I am 100% sure that there will be some naive and gullible people who would fall for it.

FTFY.
One simple google search with that address would reveal to you how many people have magically recovered their funds, probably there are more testimonials posted by that bot that scams in bitcoin's existence.
Seriously, it takes 5 seconds to just wonder about something that might not be real and check it.


Healing?Lol!
There are no "experts" that could recover bitcoins from anybody, the only people who can recover coins are government agencies, with a mandate and with the hope of the spammer actually collaborating with them or having their data unencrypted. No CEX in this world will freeze assets or return them to Mr X just because Mr Y said that without a court order.

So even if the shaker directly sends your coins to a known wallet of a known exchange there is nobody in this world other than the above-mentioned that could help you retrieve them.

Now that aside, reading those posts why didn't you invest in all other businesses that were posted there?



Look at all those opportunities, contact Professor Mike Hang now!!!!!

Ahhh, just no. The email address handle looks like it was created by a teen that thinks he's some kind of an evil incarnate of a mad computer scientist. For newbies like you, always remember that once bitcoins were transferred to another address you don't control, there is no way in hell that you can get them back. Consider it lost and just move on with your life. If coins were transferred to an exchange and the hacker is dumb enough to leave trails which will eventually be tracked, you still can't recover your coins but you can direct the law enforcement to help you with your case.

Bitcoins are easy to track but recovery is much more complicated not even going back.
and it is quite possible to track the stolen bitcoins and that is done by monitoring the blockchain, in practice. This is complicated by the anonymous nature of the currency and the fact that thieves will most likely use a bitcoin exchange to exchange currency for normal money outright.
the healing possibilities might be slightly different as it would require different skill levels to complete, only experts could do this and there were very few people, as many people lost because these experts extorted people from them.

IMO Bitcoin recovery services are fake. They are a bunch of scammers who prey on victims of crypto scams and extort them for more while promising them justice and their stolen bitcoins. You can't get your bitcoins back unless you have the private keys to the wallet holding the bitcoins, there is no possible hack or sophisticated tools that can be used to crack the wallet to return back your money.

This is absolutely not true, this is one of the strategies used by scammers, if you send a message to the email or whatever means of contact they provided for you, you will definitely get a reply and if you follow the instructions they give you, you will end up being scammed the second time.

Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general) transactions are not reversible, the testimonies in the comment section of how lost Bitcoins were returned or recovered are all fake, do not believe or fall for any of those, no matter how genuine it looks or sounds, it's a scam strategy.

The testimonial is very vague because the hacker will never send the hacked Bitcoin on a custodial wallet that will lead authorities to track him. Technically, there is no way to recover it virtually because the only way to do it is to crack down the hackers wallet address seed phrase which is not possible.

But there are many incident in the past that hackers got busted by sending the hacked Bitcoins on a centralized exchange. Anything centralized is what makes Bitcojn recoverable.

Tracing coins is possible, but identifying the perpetrator relies on the fact that the coins are sent to a centralized exchange or another online service, where the perpetrator has left at least some trace of his personal identity. It is even possible to use the IP address to identify the owner of the wallet, but this is not possible if the coins remain on a decentralized, non-custodial wallets.

Tracing and deanonymizing are not the same thing. With some educated guesswork you can maybe trace coins across a few transactions, but it is very easy to get it completely wrong and still doesn't tell you anything about who is making those transactions. Deanonymizing a single address is different. This can be done if funds from that address move to a KYCed account on a centralized exchange or other service, if the wallet software being used is custodial, if the wallet software being used leaks information such as IP addresses, if the address is posted on social media or a forum, and so on.

Coins being moved between personal wallets become increasingly difficult to accurately trace or to deanonymize, if the users in question know what they are doing. It also remains impossible for any "bitcoin recovery service" or similar to infiltrate such a wallet and recover any stolen coins. Anyone advertising such a service is almost certainly trying to scam you.

If someone has gained access to any crypto wallet (private keys) and made a transaction on CEX, it is theoretically possible to freeze those funds if the rightful owner reacts in time. But even if the hacker sent the stolen funds to his private wallet, and then at some point to CEX, the owner has a chance to get them back if he contacted as many CEXs as possible and sent them the coin address where his coins ended up.

Those hackers who know what they are doing will surely use coin mixers, decentralized crypto exchanges, or some other methods to cover their tracks. The story you read is completely fake created to promote scammers who supposedly save stolen Bitcoins with some kind of magic, when in reality they have no control whatsoever.

Do you mean the funds can only be traced if the thieves make a mistake of sending it to a centralized exchange?
Also, does this means if the funds is not sent to a centralized exchange but moved to another personal wallet it can never be traced as far as the funds remains in such wallet??

You should understand something about bitcoin posts and cryptocurrency, those comments are just one of the ways you will end up being scammed again and again. Bitcoin loss cannot be reversed, you can't undo a transaction that has been confirmed on the bitcoin network, you may see rare cases where experts help to recover private keys from wallet.dat which require brute forcing but not an already spent bitcoin.

If look at that comment closely and understand how bitcoin work, you will know that the user who made the comment lied for a living, I see no reason why someone will take over your wallet and still leave the bitcoin on the wallet until some shitty expert helped him out. Those kinds of comments are easier to spot and very popular on social media, most of the time, on youtube channels. This is where a single person will comment on how MR A has helped him trade $200 to make $11k and the rest of the testimonial bots replies will follow the comment just to convince people to try out the fake service.

Unlike traditional money transfer systems, once you have pressed the "send" button there is no chance for you to revert back, which is one of the differences between bitcoin and traditional money transfer systems. With statements like this, I consider this a scam, you will lose another large amount of money to another scammer if you choose to use this service, you can even report it to the FBI, they can't help you get those bitcoins back let alone these fake experts.

Just remember that transaction using bitcoin is not reversible as other say so don't believe on anyone that they can help you out to recover your lost funds since its so hard to track those criminals especially if they are anonymous and hiding their identity.

Those guys who offer service like this are also scammer and they target distress victims of scam because they are prone to get scam again for wanting to get back what huge amount they lose.

ha..
nice story..
.. but also nice try subtly adverting an email of possibly another scammer using a proton email who will scam a victim again by charging him a fee for pretending to recover funds
(yep its actually a thing. people pretending to help victims, but are scammers knowing a victim is probably gullible to fall for it due to them being a victim already)
(yep its a thing that scammers also try to pretend they are, or heard, or read about a victim just to advertise a scammers contact info to get victims to email scammers)
..
there is no backdoor to bitcoin to recover funds. no refund mechanism
THERE IS NO SECRET HACK/SCHEME where someone can recover funds via bitcoin

the only option is to know something about the scammer/thief to find them and bend their arm, threatened or have them arrested/sued and compelled to return the funds(thats if you can find them ofcourse)

bitcoin is secured by the fact that once funds are moved and CONFIRMED, they cannot move back unless the recipient and only the recipient instigates the move.

the security does however mean that people have to be more risk aware. much like carrying a suitcase of cash around.
if you do not know of a stranger asking to look at or handle the suitcase you have, even if they are smartly dressed in a company uniform you do recognise. just don't hand them the suitcase.

phishing is like con men. they might have a fake ID saying they are from company X. but just do some extra checks and due diligence before letting them near your funds

I believe that people should learn about basic safety of storing and using Bitcoin before investing into it, but that the main risk of investment is the price volatility, not stolen coins. If you do everything right, your coins will be safe. They get stolen if you stored the coins on a centralized platform where the keys aren't yours, or if you're very negligent with your seed. And because you store the coins yourself, there's more responsibility for it (you can't ask an authority of some sort to freeze your account, restore your access to it or reverse a transaction), but that's the trade-off of financial freedom.
If your coins were stolen, the chance of getting them back is very low. But sometimes it can be possible if there's certain data available, and if people know what they're doing. I once helped a friend save BTC when a situation was quite dark (not out of deep knowledge, though, but merely out of luck and cold mindset when it was important). I also got lucky once with recovering 40% of my funds on a platform that performed an exit scam (I was very new to cryptos back then and didn't know about the 'not your keys, not your coins' thing), but it was also about luck, not expertise. I do know that there are some successful cases when authorities catch the criminals and seize funds, which victims can sometimes get in return. And I also know that sometimes, when there's some data available and some data lost, it's possible to get help from experts and recover the coins (not in the case they're stolen, though, but rather when you accidentally lock yourself out of access).

It should be known also that recovery services telling people that they can help to recover such transaction only want to scam them too, which means recovery services are scam.

Actually, bitcoin unconfirmed transaction that support replace-by-fee can be reversed if double-spent by the sender. Also if the mempool is congested and full, low fee transactions in the mempool would be replaced by new transactions with high fee, the low fee transactions can be used in another transaction.But this is not about this topic at all though. Confirmed transactions can not be reversed, it is truly irreversible.

Exactly because the transaction would already have been confirmed.

As I read their criticism and opinion about Bitcoin, you can really say that some have deep knowledge about this and some don't have any. With the shared opinions, positive and negative opinions, as a listener or reader it somehow just creates confusion in our minds about what is right and what is wrong. That is why having this situation we should not have to weigh all of those things we heard but it was for us to even try to further know what really it is (Bitcoin) and to verify something (potential investment or scam).

Actually those testimonials are most probably all fake and one will be scammed again paying for a service that cannot do anything.

1. Bitcoin transactions are irreversible.
2. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, hence if somebody knows what he's doing, the stolen coins won't ever be linked to his identity.
3. If, by chance, the thieve makes a mistake, he has to also send his funds to a centralized exchange (which may or may not happen, or, even if it happens, it may happen only after many years), and the exchange will move a finger only if a proper warrant will be shown to them, which  is not easy to obtain.

So this kind of "experts" will most likely get some fat money deposits from you, may fill you with promises and .. will do nothing.

Bitcoin transaction is irreversible. So when your Bitcoin was sent to any address that does not belong to you, you lost it, forever.

You can not recover it, never.

But you can recover your wallet if it was hacked, compromised. It does not make sense if all Bitcoin in that wallet was stolen already. However, with a non custodial wallet, you can do more than just making a transaction. You can sign a message from that wallet (from a public address and a key) and sometimes, you have to do this for business deal.

But because that wallet was compromised, you should abandon it after you can prove your ownership and inform others (trade, business partners) about the situation. After that, you must use a new wallet for storage, signing message and so on.

I was reading a post where financial professionals discussed their views on bitcoin. how it influences both people and the government's desire to impose regulations on them. Some people, however, supported its existence and the issue it resolves, while others continue to believe there are reasons why it is not advisable to invest in cryptocurrencies as a whole. Such criticism has always existed as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continue to expand, among others.

What really impressed me about the post was the comment section, where readers shared their experiences utilizing bitcoin. One of the commenter named Paul Krebs described how he lost his bitcoin to a bogus blockchain.com imposter on Facebook, where they contacted him as blockchain official support. They gained access to his blockchain wallet, and 7.0938 BTC were taken. However, he claimed that the bitcoin was returned after he emailed a recovery expert with contact address - BLACKJOCKER10x @ PROTONMAIL COM. Different professionals who aid in retrieving stolen bitcoin were suggested by other commenters.

This post explains how cryptocurrency newbies like me, who are also interested in learning more about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can receive assistance from professionals who can aid in retrieving monies that have been taken from their wallets. And how to spot bogus blockchain official supporters when they are dressed as one. We have experts in the forum who can shed more light on this as well as how genuine those commenters were and determine if their testimonies were not fake. By contacting such experts, people won't be persuaded to fall victim to another scam.