Recovering Lost or Incorrect Seed Words

Wallet restorations when the seed words are incorrect or incomplete

Losing your Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency wallet seed words can have serious consequences, and it often means losing access to your Bitcoin / crypto funds permanently. The seed words, also known as the recovery phrase or mnemonic phrase, are typically a sequence of 12, 18, or 24 words that serve as a backup and recovery mechanism for your Bitcoin or crypto wallet.

When you create a Bitcoin / crypto wallet, you are usually prompted to write down and securely store your seed words. These words are crucial because they can be used to regenerate your private keys and access your Bitcoin funds. If you lose ALL the seed words there is no way to recover the funds.

However, maybe you’ve tried to recreate your wallet by entering the seed words but find that either your seed phrase is invalid or you’ve been taken to an empty wallet ?

• If your seed words are invalid then you originally wrote your seed words down incorrectly – check for misspelt words, or words in the wrong order. Maybe you misread an original word or have words missing ?
• If you’ve entered your seed phrase correctly but have been taken to an empty wallet you have either
  • Written the words down incorrectly
  • Written the words in the wrong order
  • The wrong seed words for the wallet you are trying to open

In all these instances there is a chance that we can recover your cryptocurrency. Please contact us for further information. We only charge if we are successful in recovering your cryptocurrency.

Best Practice

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible by design, which means that once you lose access to your wallet, you cannot reverse or undo any transactions made from it. This is a fundamental aspect of Bitcoin’s security and immutability.

To protect your Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, it’s essential to follow best practices for securing your seed words:

• Write down the seed words on paper and keep them in a secure and private location, such as a safe or a lockbox.
• Avoid storing your seed words electronically, as this could expose them to hacking or accidental loss.
• Never share your seed words with anyone you don’t trust explicitly
• Consider using a hardware wallet or a well-established software wallet with backup and recovery features.

If you’re having problems with your seed words please get in touch, we should be able to help.

Above: An example of a private key held as 24 seed words.

Links:

• Main Bitcoin and cryptocurrency recovery page
• Main data recovery page