Lost keys to access cryptocurrency wallets are a nightmare for any owner of digital assets. After such an event, the chance to restore access to your capital is practically zero, since there are no mechanisms for returning coins from crypto wallets in the decentralized industry.
However, the start-up KeychainX managed to accomplish the almost impossible the day before: the team opened the contents of the address, which contained a significant amount of DOGE tokens. At the same time, the client of the company was not able to remember the passwords on his own.
By tradition, let’s start with an explanation. There are different passwords in the cryptocurrency niche, but the importance of secret combinations is still incredible. For example, it can be either a regular password from a cryptocurrency exchange or an access code from a wallet application, or a full-fledged seed phrase – that is, a unique list of several words that give the right to dispose of coins at a specific address from a device anywhere in the world.
Note that sometimes users lose cryptocurrencies more spectacularly. For example, now in a junkyard in Newport, Rhode Island, they want to search for a hard drive that James Howells accidentally threw away in 2013. The carrier contains information and files, able to open access to the address with 7500 bitcoins. At today’s exchange rate, the amount translates to $ 326 million.
How to restore access to a crypto wallet
The story of the client of the startup, whose name remains unknown, was published by Cointelegraph reporters . In general, he purchased DOGE coins back in 2015 in the amount of $ 1,500 – that is how much DOGE 10 million then cost . To date, the amount of his investments has increased almost 2 thousand times to $ 3 million. It was this volume of coins that remained outside the user’s access.
This investor is not the only person who has managed to make millions of dollars from an early investment in Dogecoin. Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin did the same in his time. In 2016, he invested $ 25 thousand in DOGE , and he would hardly have told his mother about this investment. In the end, half of the amount was sold for more than $ 4 million, which went to charity.
Dogecoin price increase over the past 180 days
The problem was that the coins were transferred to an Android wallet with a 12-digit PIN . It would take more than one life to crack such a long combination without any input data, so a simple search of combinations would simply not work here. But KeychainX employees have thought of a strategy to restore access. They speculated that the most important numbers for their client might be the path to unlocking the wallet. That is, like many other people, a crypto investor could not use a random combination of numbers, but something close and important.
Therefore, they began to ask the anonymous author for all the most significant: from the date of birth of close relatives and ending with simply favorite or significant numbers. From these scraps of information, the startup employees were still able to pick the correct PIN and unlock the wallet. Although what exactly the combination was – the experts did not say.
However, this only solved part of the problem. The fact is that the client purchased the coins a long time ago, and therefore the synchronization of the wallet with the Dogecoin blockchain took a long time. Plus, it was necessary to make sure that there were no viruses, keyloggers or any other malicious software on his device.
As a reminder, a keylogger is a special type of malicious software that allows hackers to remotely read key combinations from a device. In theory, a keylogger allows you to find out the password from a cryptocurrency exchange or wallet and thereby steal coins.
Then a small transaction was sent from the address to DOGE, which was successful. After that, it was decided to transfer the entire amount to another wallet, that is, to finally restore all funds.
KeychainX CEO Robert Rodin noted the success of the entire operation and added that their anonymous client «promised to buy a beer the next time he is in town,» where the employees are. In this case, we assume that the cost of selecting the desired combination has already been paid. Although she, again, was not named.
We believe that this story really stands out from all the other «lucky ones» who have lost their cryptocurrencies, since it is very difficult to restore «virtual wealth». However, in this case, the investor was lucky. And although the representatives of the startup did not disclose what the combination-password was – as well as the time spent on choosing the combination, it is hard not to believe in the story. Still, lost passwords and seed phrases are one of the most popular reasons for losing cryptocurrencies. And in this case, such a story ended successfully.
