Bitcoin Forum

Suppose a person have some bitcoins in his online wallet and he forget the password (or lose access to that online wallet in any way) then what will happen to that bitcoins?Will that be there forever or as the wallet providers have access to them and they will get them if they find no any owner for years.

If with online you mean hosted by a company u can always get it back.

If it's a wallet where you control the keys, such as jaxx then it's gone

depends on the company and the web wallet

some can't access your funds if you lose the password or id, but they have secret seed that would allow you to recover the wallet, and you may export the private keys, so you would not lose your funds

the answer depends on the service

Tricky situation but the coins doesn't necessary have to be lost. Many web wallets have ways to,recover your funds, even if the password is lost, like blockchain. The best way is to contact the customer service, explain what happened and I'm sure there will be some kind of solution.

In some web wallets even if you lose the password you are giving some way to recover your coins but if lost that as well, then the most likely answer is those coins are forever lost and you just made a small contribution to the other bitcoin holders by taking out of circulation that amount of bitcoin.

That person would use the recover password functionality that exists in many places. If you were questioning what happens if the owner's identity cannot be proven, that probably depends from provider to provider (maybe you can find it in their TOS, or something like that).

In general, funds would probably remain stuck until the wallet services shut down. At which point, yes, they would probably be lost for good.

If the user is gone for long years, then it will prompt to the online wallet owner that such account having a balance are already inactive anymore. They can get the bitcoin as they have an access to it.

For a case that the owner came back after many years, that person can still seek to his coins because afterall online wallets have database and systems that tracks records of transactions of their clients.

Yeah it depends on the service. and The question came to my mind after looking at a notice of blockchain wallet. once when I was creating my blockchain it said that if I lost my wallet ID or password then I would not be able to recover my coins.

you need to recover it thru your email. bitcoin is very hard to lost because it has a value for us. but when the time comes that you cant recover it, it will stay in your online wallet forever and ever.

I think this problem can be solved in most of cases, It depend with which web wallet that person(x) use and the company. So, x can contact them and try to solve the problem with them by sharing his account information. due to that, he can recover his account and bitcoin. Anyways, I don't think this is a big problem.

if you forget the password maybe you can request a new password, all online wallet features Recover password

You can forgot password to recover your account. However if there is no other way to have access on it, I think the BTC will stay forever unless the owner or administrator is aware on how to get it. That's why bitcoin is decreasing because we consider it as lost.

Well if that is the case then those coins are lost forever. It will be called as 'burnt bitcoins' and those will remain there forever. But just like what others said, you can use recover password. It's up to that wallet provider if they will do something about those coins but if someone find it out, they will lose their credibility.


He said that losing access to that online wallet in any way.

Just if an online wallet is just deducting some bitcoin from some wallet that they consider as a non-active wallet and have been left by the owner, it's still not their right to take it and it can be considered as a wrong action unless they're already having an agreement towards their client regarding this, therefore, the online wallet provider which have done this could be considered as an untrustworthy service provider, it's also a proof that the service providers still keeping sensitive data in their database.
And because of that, the bitcoin will remain forever in the wallet until the real owners have an access to get through and take their own BTC.

Most online wallet service providers keep all the private keys to the bitcoins. You balance is actually in the SP own ledger. Therefore, if you can prove who your ownership of the account, the SP should be able to help.

If case if the online wallet service is shutting down, there should be a period of time in which users can withdraw their balances. However, most like the unclaimed balance will go to SP's pocket.

Most members are saying the same thought which is very true because this would depends on the service,asking for password recovery would be so troublesome if you cant provide proofs that you own that wallet and all web wallet provider do really have the seeds which there a possibility those bitcoins could be accessed again.

If we are talking about the web wallet from blockchain.info you can't request a new password and the only way is by recovering your password  using the mnemonic phrase provided from blockchain.

Well, since you're specifically referring to blockchain.info then they've already said it pretty clearly.
They claim to have no copy of user's password, so if you loose it, you better have backed-up your secret phrase/mnemonic.

If you do, then I think they'd be able to help you recover/generate the wallet. If not, then I'm not sure they'd accommodate other ways of verifying account ownership. If you were actively buying/selling from their exchange with your personal bank account/cards/etc, then they might be able to verify via the documents, but if you were just using their wallet, then that's hard.

So, make sure you always backup any/all mnemonics for your wallets.

Hugh relief to see Blockchain mentioned. The initial impression was if you lose your password you lose your money as well. 

Those bitcoins will not be lost but will remain untouched. The site in their agreement with the users will clearly state that the bitcoin in the wallets will remain untouched by the company except if necessary. Those bitcoins though not lost will be considered lost since they will be left untouched until the site is still running. But this will be a warning to all of us to really keep the password safe so we wont regret anything.

At first your coin will be there forever and after years coin still there wihout user activity maybe wallet provider will access your coin

They will notice it later on and as they monitor the inactive accounts they will surely grab those coins left by the user so bitcoin is not lossing completely.
Imagine those hackers can steal your money even they are not the admin of the site how much more those owners who have the full control of it.

If the online wallet gives access to your private keys such as blockchain.info, then if you lose the password and every other way to access that wallet then the bitcoin on that private key will be lost forever. websites such as blockchain.info don't have access to your private key so there is no way they will be able to recover the bitcoin. On the other hand if we tall about an exchange wallet such as coinbase then its a little different story as they do not give access to your private key so they  'may' have access to your bitcoin.

Hopefully they will not touch those bitcoins until they run their business legit. For the case of Xapo, we will have the same amount of bitcoins until they are into the business.

There will be no big differences for the case of forgetting password with online wallets nor standalone wallets. Our bitcoin will remain unspent in most of the cases.

I read our central bank has millions worth of money unclaimed on numerous accounts as account holders discontinue banking for various reasons.Hence this will not be a new situation just due to bitcoin nor bitcoin's online wallet functionality. If you ask your insurer about unclaimed insurance amounts, you might get shocked.

I also think of it they have full control of your wallet they can easily remove it  if ever they  want . Buy also depends what kind of online wallet you use.

Yes that's true, there is a lot of unclaimed money than we think. It is a similar case with bitcoin, there are a lot of unclaimed and lost bitcoin on private keys to which no one has access.

I have an idea that the owner of such online wallets have something for that case. Just like mobile operators who remove the number from their base if it is not used for 6 months; and if you had some money on that number account they are automatically stays at the compain. But for the correct information I suggest you to write to a support of one of such wallets.

You can always use the "forget password" feature or if the account was verified, prove to them that it's actually you. The online wallet that I'm using allow doing video calls, you just have to set a time with the support staff. They are really active and you can talk to different support staffs, just in case the one that you contacted before is offline.

There are also online wallets that allow you to import private keys. If you only imported the address using the private key, you don't have to worry at all since you can just create another wallet and import the same address.

When you can't do any of this, then I'm afraid that your bitcoins are lost forever. The only way for your coins to move again is when the online wallet gets hacked and all of the coins are sent to the hacker's wallet or if the online wallet you used chose to run away all the coins. Otherwise, it's there forever.

There nothing to happen if someone's lost their wallet password because it will just stay their and it will become untouchable because the wallet is locked by losing the password. But there still a way to get access to the account if you lost the password. If you still have the email which most of the online wallets requires then you can get the bitcoins back.

People who use bitcoin web wallet suppose to keep their password safe and securely because there is only a small chance that you can recover your accounts especially to people who live in non-supported countries. That is why we should never use third party wallet. They can still our Bitcoin if they want to. Lol

It's hard to say what will happen, I've used it and still use it, although it's not often. Online wallets always find the risk of losing money, because most of them use cloud data, and hackers can easily hack, steal information or get your money clean. This is really dangerous, I still use it because of the convenience, however, I only have a small amount of money there, that is the best way to ensure safety.

You can still reset it. Online wallet are using email to receive notifications and confirmations. I reset my passwords very often lately because i dont remember them. Just go to "forgot password?". And the confirmation will receive thru your emal. Just make sure the email you registered is valid and functioning. You can contact also their support. If you use XAPO wallet. Be patient. They respond very late.

It is easy to recover your online wallet password by your email that you have used on making that online wallet of yours, that is why it is important on remembering every details when you made an online wallet. You could just simply save all the important details in your PC or in your cellphone, as long as you know that it is safe.

Also, if you forgot the email that you have used, you can try to contact their Support team on that certain wallet, for you to ask help on retrieving your lost password.

I don't think that they would be issue if you lost your password in an online wallet. My online wallet I'm using will make you enter you email or the phone number you used to register and then they'll just send a verification code to reset your password. The problem arises here if you change your phone number and forgot to update the information in your online wallet. Or if you can't remember the password of the email you used to register in your online wallet. So make sure you don't lose both information.

It's all ok if you forgot the password and the site sends it to your e-mail. But I am wander what to do if a person died, for example? How in this case take his bitcoins? Maybe this bitcoins stays unlocked forever? Does anyone have an idea for this point?

There are many scenarios for this situation, for example if this person used coinbase, xapo or any other online wallet which does not provide private key then these bitcoins will move from one wallet to another within the company as they do this regularly.

So the balance to a user of these services is only in digits as a reference to their database, so whenever the user gets logged in back and requests to make a withdrawal or a transfer of these funds then the funds will be taken from the hot or cold wallet as regular.

i think the amount of bitcoin will stay in that online wallet without any one can access and maybe for the owner of the online wallet can not access unless the owner have your id and your password so he can login into your account. but i don't know what exactly will happen because i am still need learn about this later.

Online wallets are more or less can be retained. All you need to do it click 'forget password'. But in case you lost complete access to account, I think it will stay in your address but company can easily claim it as its own fund when it wishes so! So no disappearance of funds.

I guess the best answer on that problem is to always have an memo on your phone or even have a trust person to know you password. But i also think that the situation stated is impossible to happened especially to people with only one wallet or two. And if you are going to have multiple accounts i suggest that just pattent all your password acount as one for easy and for you to not forget your password.

When a user loses his wallet, it has the effect of removing money out of circulation. Lost bitcoins still remain in the block chain just like other bitcoins. However, lost bitcoins remain dormant forever because there is no way for anybody to find the private key/keys that would allow them to be spent again. Because of the law of supply and demand, when fewer bitcoins are available, the ones that are left will be in higher demand and increase in value to compensate.

For xapo and coinbase like wallets, you can request password reset to access your funds but if you are using blockchain.info like client side encrypted wallets than if you loss your password and haven't made proper backup of your wallet than those bitcoin will stay there forever. Because your passwords are not saved anywhere online (according to them) so even blockchain.info will not have access to your bitcoins.

The administrator of the wallet website can reset anytime the password to any email and access on your wallet but the TOS and laws will not allow this to happen, but at least they can freeze the account but the bitcoins can be spent but only digits will be stored as a reference.

For example, the administrator of the forum can reset the password or even lock the account for some reasons and you have nothing to do rather than respect the decision. Some wallet services do not have this option as they encrypt or have a harder system to get access to their client's funds.

With xapo and coinbase, you can still recover your coins (with 2FA or by contacting their support) and even in case of exchange wallets but with blockchain wallet, if you've taken the backup or remember the backup phrase or private key, you can recover the wallet even if you've forgotten the password. However, many people haven't taken these precautions and saved the private key or backup phrase and hence have lost complete access to their wallet.

I've only have one online wallet and since this one is strict enough to ask for government IDs I'm fairly positive they'd be able to give me back my bitcoins. All I'd need is to contact them and ask for instructions on how to claim it. They asked for a selfie on registration, maybe I'll just have to do that again or maybe a vidcall. It's a local exchange so if all else fails I can just go to their office. Quite frankly I haven't thought of this. Might be time to have a chat with one of their friendly support guys.

if its some usual online wallet then probably you can get the password reset by requesting them  but if its a wallet like blockchain and you do not have the password or private key then yes you are locked out for ever.. and your coin will be there forever no one can reach them

Where do u make the request? and are there occasions where u see someone got it back?. What of wallets that u may not have to use email address to register? what can be done with that?

While the chances are low, it is possible a hacker or group of hackers hack the site of the web wallet and get access to the lost coins, so there is the possibility the coins are not lost forever, although the owner will not see them again one way or another.

The bitcoin will go to the trash and the wallet provider can't do anything with that amount. But the email identification will prevent that thing to be happen in the future, the reset password feature.
But if he wasn't to do anything and his bitcoin will always on the cold storage.

Updated codings in bitcoin saving online wallet provide the best security. Even if at some situation the password is lost, now you can retain the entire bitcoin within the wallet to a new bitcoin address. I believe one cannot use the bitcoin address of the wallet with lost password anymore.

I think the bitcoins will be there forever because there but if the owner has a proof that he owns that bitcoins like he knows the email or maybe mobile number that included in that online web wallet account then he can easily get those bitcoins back. Now a days, Most of the online wallets requires mobile number so even you forgot your email you can use your mobile number as a back up and they will just send you some codes and then you can now reset the password of your account or recover your coins on it.

You do not have to worry at all. You can always have your account back.
Either there should be an option for resetting your password by send a confirmation in your email
Or you can use the code which was provided to you when you had created a backup.
And like how can you loose your password. Did you forget or something.
Is yes then probably try to remember or just try the steps mentioned above

I Think that it really depends on which online wallet you are using.  I have never really used them because i think they defeat the point of bitcoin in the 1st place, they make bitcoin use centralised.  But if they store your private keys and all you need is a password then i cant see why they couldn't authenticate who you are via some other means and thus allow you access to your wallet.

On web wallets your Bitcoin is nearly always safe.  You can just contact their support and there will usually be a way to sort out the problem (although you might have to provide your identity, which could be a problem).

If you own the private keys and you're on a cold wallet or something, then that means your Bitcoin is lost forever, and in most cases won't be in circulation again.  That's okay though, because it's very unlikely to actually happen.

agree. probably an online wallet provides a service to recover your wallet, but offline ones do not because you own the private keys. however, I ever read the policy of an online wallet that they cannot recover your wallet when you lose your identifier. so the key is identifier. if you still have it, I think you can get your coins back.

Password resets are now a thing, you know? It would ask at least one identifier for your account to check that you are indeed the same user who is trying to access the account that is locked. The coins will not be in limbo IF you know the secret phrase or whatnot that you used as an additional security feature on the account.

When he using online wallet then he forgot the password, you really cannot open it. There is way to recover because online wallets have recovery options. You should remember what did you put in the registration form because your recovery is there.
You know, because it is a online wallet they can access your account if they want but they didn't know  if the owner of that account has losten his password.

There is an option to renew your password but only when you give email id to that online wallet, by doing this you can easily get your bitcoins back as well as approach to your account, if you don't have this option then you should report the support center and they will guide you in a better way than us.

if you loose the password and the wallet is from an internet company and you don t have private keys you can try all methods to resque the password like e-mail reset password link or phone verification if you fail all these methods forget your bitcoins

yes different wallets have their own policies according to which they are giving security to their people. for example if you have lost your gmail password then it will become difficult to get access to your wallet.

If someone lost his password and didn't join a adresse email or his phone number to have access to his wallet, that person will simply lost forever his wallet. And nobody has access to this wallet that's why the all money will be locked in this wallet. However it's possible that a good hacker find a way to get through the password and then have access to it and to the money.

True, It completely depends on the wallet which you are using because if you lose password for blockchain then it is really difficult to get access to the wallet and the bitcoins stored over there as it will ask you for the unique sentence which gets generated at the time of creating the wallet which nobody remembers so it becomes almost impossible to retrieve the access to wallet if you lose password of blockchain but there are other wallets like coinbase whose password can be easily retrieved using the registered email address.

If you took the time to verify your account with and id then that opens a lot more possibilities to recover your account since even if you lose your password you can easily verify your identity by sending a selfie with your id card and get your coins back.

You cant lose your bitcoin by forgetting your password. It remains in that online wallet until you "recover your password" or contact customer service

We've been talking about this same problem a few months back and the best solution in my opinion would be: If the wallet and bitcoins on that wallet haven't been used for a 10-13 years, those bitcoins would be sent back to the original miner. This way, those who are holding BTC  as a long time investment won't have their btc returned even if they forget about that 10-13 year period and also get the lost btc back in the flow.

you can regain to your account if you have a little access like email connected then you can request a password reset but if you don't have any access to the wallet your bitcoin will remain in your wallet and will not be lost

Yes. If blockchain is your wallet then you lost your password all you have to do is to put the given phrase when you already starting. But in the other wallet. I suggest to you that request for a new. You have email address on it so ask for the reset password. Because all I know is that if you lost your password and have bitcoin on it, after a year or a month they will have access on it and get the bitcoin inside that wallet.

Correct, you could retrieve your lost password by contacting the Support of that certain wallet, and then they will suggest to you to retrieve your password by using the email that you have provided when you created your online wallet, and if you can't remember any details about your private info when you have created that online wallet, sadly, that bitcoin stored in your wallet will remain there, unless someone would hacked it up.

So, in order to not to lose your password, it would be better if you are going to save it in your PC or in your smartphones, you could print it also in white paper, but the risk of losing it is big than saving it on the PC or smartphone.

If you lose your private keys (and the bitcoins on them) it is over, 0 chance to recover.

I don't you actually thing anything like that can happen unless he is dead because most of the online wallets have forgot password option and if they have 2fa i thinl you can contact them and they may unlock your account. But if none of this works then i think the money will stay there unless site closes

But nevertheless, even without contacting the support service, you can always restore passwords or access to wallets, with the help of special services. After all, these are elementary things for normal wallets.

For wallets like electrum, a seed is generated at the time of registration and you could use it to recover your wallet.For other online wallet, i hope they would ask your email id and send your details to it on request.

It wont be lost. It will remain in the wallet and wont be untouched even for how many years I think. Unless someone know your password and access your account.

According to me loosing bitcoins is much more difficult than loosing paper money.
The scope of a person being a good thief is always more than he being a good hacker.
If you have given a valid email ID or your phone number then definitely you will have a reset option.
Bitcoins in a lost wallet will be useless because of the fact that no body can use them unless they are retained or detected by some hacker.

I think it doesn't lose the bitcoin the same as your password. We can recover our password by suggesting on how to do it. There is always a solution to a certain problem like that. People will help you to your problem but make it sure that he/she is trustworthy. Sometimes they're interested in your money and they will take all of your bitcoin. Be observant what he's/she's doing in your online wallet.