Lost Cryptocurrency: How Can We Recover It?
The above narrative describes a terrifying incident that happened to Mahmoud. Mahmoud was a friend of one of my acquaintances, and I was introduced to him to help him if possible. Fortunately, the team at SafePal was able to recover his lost assets after a complex and lengthy recovery process.
The question is: what role does the SafePal team play in such situations?
Over the past three years, SafePal has been serving digital currency enthusiasts as the official representative of hardware wallets in Kuwait. A significant volume of incoming calls and inquiries received by the technical experts at SafePal concerned the loss of digital assets. These losses were due to various reasons such as sending the currency to the wrong address, sending it on the wrong network, or losing access to the assets due to forgotten passwords or other reasons. The absence of a reliable and recognized authority for asset recovery had become a significant and deep-rooted problem. Users who had lost their assets were not only distressed by the loss of their wealth but were also anxious and frustrated about finding a solution.
Therefore, the first exploratory investigations and expert meetings in this field were initiated. After technical reviews and coordination with the technical department of SafePal, a special team was established in February 2021, consisting of the most skilled and experienced experts in security, cryptography, programming, and digital currencies. The mission assigned to this team was summarized in three words: "Recovering Lost Assets" for users.
With its specialized and advanced performance, this team has successfully recovered more than 600 cases of lost user assets.
Where do these problems come from?
First of all, it is important to be very clear and transparent about a significant fact: sometimes, unfortunately, there is no way to recover what has been lost.
One of these "sometimes" is when you send a currency to the wrong address and your capital is stuck in the wallet of someone unknown. In this case, you can only hope for one thing: the conscience of the owner of the wallet to whom you transferred your assets. And that's it!
But to prevent such problems, there are a few points that must be observed so that you can make the least risky transactions with peace of mind.
Prevention is better than cure
For proper prevention, let's get straight to the point. First, double-check the address and network before confirming the transaction. We usually check the first four and last four letters after copying and pasting. Of course, there have been cases where hackers save their wallet address in the clipboard of your phone or system, and after copying and pasting, you actually paste the hacker's wallet address. The safest way to transfer currency is to scan the wallet address.
The importance of recovery phrases
Recovery phrases or mnemonic phrases are actually titles for your digital asset document, so the holder of recovery phrases is recognized as the owner of those assets. After launching your SafePal hardware wallet, you must write down the recovery phrases on the papers that exist in the SafePal hardware wallet box and keep them in a "safe place".
Because in case of loss, damage, theft, or any other event that prevents you from accessing your SafePal hardware or software wallet, the only way to access these assets is to use recovery phrases to recover and retrieve your hardware or software wallet.
Never take a picture of the recovery phrase and do not store them in digital space. The reason for all this emphasis on maintaining and storing these phrases correctly is the large number of users who have not protected their recovery phrase enough and have lost all their digital currency assets.
After opening the two security stickers of the SafePal S1 hardware wallet box, you will see two recovery phrase registration papers. These papers are numbered from one to 24.
You can record your recovery phrases on these papers. These phrases can be selected in 12-word, 18-word, or 24-word formats.
Kuwait SafePal technical experts always emphasize using the 24-word format and being fully accurate in writing the words so that all letters and words are readable and clear for you. After filling out both forms, put them in a pocket in the package and keep them in a safe place.
The most important rule regarding hardware wallets is never enter the recovery phrase into any device connected to the internet; therefore, never take a picture of your recovery phrase; do not type it on your computer or mobile phone and never use cloud spaces to store recovery phrases.
Digital currency assets are worth billions of dollars and are always vulnerable to hacking.
Even with anti-virus software, any device connected to the internet is vulnerable to hacker attacks. Therefore, storing recovery phrases completely offline is very essential.
Where and how should we store the hardware wallet recovery phrase?
One of the safest ways is to divide the recovery phrase into multiple parts and store each part in different locations. For example, if your recovery phrase consists of 12 words, you can store three sets of four words in three different places. Another secure option to protect your recovery phrase is to store it on a backup tool in a secure location. These tools protect your recovery phrase from being destroyed in the worst-case scenarios that can lead to losing all your digital assets.
If a problem occurs, how can you contact SafePal?
If you have sent your cryptocurrency to the wrong address on the blockchain, the first step is to determine the type of wallet that you used for the transaction. If you have access to your private key or recovery phrase, your wallet is non-custodial. If you don't have access, your wallet is custodial. To communicate effectively and reach a solution quickly, we recommend that you send a message to our technical support team via WhatsApp at +96555193433 with all the necessary details, including the exact recipient and sender addresses, blockchain network, hash address, transaction details, wallet used, and transaction time. Please provide your personal information and contact number for our technical experts to reach you. Also, take a picture of the Kuwait SafePal warranty card that you received when purchasing and send it to us. (Note that special conditions and facilities are provided for Kuwait SafePal customers and warranty card holders. If you are not an Kuwait SafePal customer, please mention this in your message.)
Final words
Finally, it is essential to remind you to write down and store the necessary information for recovering your wallet in a safe place. This information includes your wallet password, seed phrase, private keys, or recovery words for each of your assets. In this article, we tried to explain the necessary basics in simple language that everyone can understand. In another article, we will delve into other dimensions of transactions that take place on the blockchain in detail and with technical expertise.
