We’ve all heard stories of Bitcoin’s astronomical price jumps and the overnight millionaires it’s created. The spike in the price of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies has given early investors incredible success.
As mainstream attention turns to crypto and DeFi, many people are wondering how they can get on board. Some have started buying cryptocurrencies for the first time in their life. This excitement, however, doesn’t always lead to the best practices, as some may not know how to keep their crypto assets secure.
What happens, for example, if someone cannot access their wallet because they lost their private key? Worse still, what if their hot wallet is hacked or they fall victim to a crypto scam? Cryptocurrency is unregulated, which means you cannot report your stolen wallet to the authorities or sue anybody for stealing your Bitcoin. This means that it is close to impossible to recover lost or stolen crypto wallets. However, cryptohunters may be able to help.
What Are Cryptohunters?
There are now people out there who have taken the liberty of searching for lost or stolen wallets. Their job is to recover lost cryptocurrency wallets for the owners at a fee. They are known as cryptohunters.
Cryptohunters utilize a wide range of skills to help locate lost or stolen funds. They can combine traditional detective work, legal enforcement, and even hypnotherapy. It is a known fact that cryptocurrency is susceptible to online attacks, and these individuals may help.
How to Restore a Bitcoin Wallet Backup
Before you call cryptohunters, there are certain steps you should take to restore your lost bitcoin wallet. Bitcoin.com and other crypto exchange platforms provide a step-by-step guide on how to restore a Bitcoin wallet backup.
The caveat is that you must have your recovery seed phrase written down or printed somewhere first. You can also use your Google account to create a cloud backup. To restore a Bitcoin wallet backup with this method, all you need to do is log in to your Google account and recover your digital wallet.
Basically, the most important requirement to recover a crypto wallet if you ever forget your password is to have a backup. It can be a 12-24 word recovery phrase, known as a seed, or a cloud backup. As long as you have a safety in place, you can recover your crypto wallet.
However, if your Bitcoin exchange has determined that your case is a lost cause, it may be time to call in the cryptohunters. Depending on who you hire, cryptohunters may use a digital method with powerful computers or psychological means of hypnotherapy. The professionals who use the hypnotherapy method are popularly known as crypto-hypnotists.
What Does a Crypto-Hypnotist Do?
While your crypto password is set to protect you against hack attacks, it can also work against you if forgotten. Losing cryptocurrency passwords and private keys is not uncommon. According to a report by Chainalysis, between 17-23 percent of Bitcoin is currently misplaced or in inaccessible wallets. Most of these wallets are owned by people who got Bitcoin in the early days when it had little to no value.
For instance, in 2013, a man was reported in the UK to be searching the Wales River for a hard drive containing 7,500 BTC he threw away. His Bitcoin would be worth about $487 million at the time of writing.
People can also lose their cryptocurrency by forgetting their passwords. Lost passwords lock millionaires out of their Bitcoin fortunes. Crypto-hypnotists help cryptocurrency investors who have forgotten their passwords to remember.
Hypnotherapy is the process of opening the subconscious while in a trance-like state of mind. There are many reasons people use hypnosis, and one of them is to remember suppressed memories.
Recently, some hypnotists have claimed that they can help wallet holders remember deeply forgotten memories of their passwords and private keys. Victims of lost passwords can consult a hypnotherapist, who will help them recall their passwords for a fee. According to experts, the success of crypto-hypnosis in recovering lost passwords depends on how well a person can remember information.
Veronika Marymur from Moscow claimed that she was able to help many people recover crypto wallets through hypnosis. Another hypnotherapist from South Carolina, Jason Miller, also set up a Bitcoin password recovery service where he helps people relax to unlock their memories.
This is because when a wallet is lost, people tend to panic, which may not help them recall their passwords easily. However, the result is not guaranteed, as only a 50% success rate is typical. Not everyone can recall their passwords through hypnosis.
Other Cryptohunt Techniques
Rather than depending on many sessions of hypnotherapy, which is not guaranteed to recover your stolen or lost Bitcoin wallet, you can consult a cryptohunter who will work jointly with law enforcers. Cryptohunters may be tech-savvy individuals who use a combination of methods, including hacking a private wallet to recover funds. The wallet recovery service, which may be an individual or a company, can perform Bitcoin wallet.dat recovery.
With coordination from wallet owners, cryptohunters use specialized software to run a series of password combinations on a lost wallet. The crypto investors would supply personal information about them to the cryptohunting service providers. They then use computer software algorithms on supercomputers to determine possible password combinations based on the data provided to them by the owners of the lost wallets.
How Much Does a Cryptohunt Cost?
The fee to hire cryptohunters is varied as they can determine their fees based on the services provided. More often than not, a cryptohunter can charge as high as 20% of the recovered Bitcoin.
Some crypto-hypnotists charge an upfront fee and an additional percentage of the recovered crypto asset. For instance, Jason Miller charges half a Bitcoin upfront and 5% of the Bitcoin recovered over three sessions. He also conducts sessions over Skype.
However, most crypto-hypnotists charge a fee per session, and if the cryptocurrency wallet is recovered, they receive an agreed percentage of the digital asset. If the amount of the virtual asset is low, the fee is negotiable.
How Much Should You Trust a Cryptohunter?
What is the guarantee that a cryptohunter will not make away with your cryptocurrency? In your desperation to find a wallet containing millions of dollars worth of crypto assets, it can be difficult to tell who is trustworthy.
As cryptohunters sometimes work with the authorities to trace stolen crypto assets, they can be easily reported. Whatever the case may be, carry out your due diligence well before you hire a cryptohunter. Or, take it upon yourself to cryptohunt in order to avoid falling victim to a scam.
Final Thoughts
The attention enjoyed by cryptocurrency has led early investors to search for their lost cryptocurrency wallets and forgotten passwords. A significant percentage of Bitcoin cannot be accessed, and more is stolen through scams, theft, and hacks. When lost passwords lock millionaires out of their Bitcoin fortunes, cryptohunters are there to help and to make a profit.
Featured Image: Megapixl
