Bitcoin Forum

I was very unfortunate to have lost a phone that had bitcoin sitting in the wallet. I was foolish and did not back the wallet up. I am wondering if there is any way to get my bitcoin at this point? I should also mention that I lost this phone 2 years ago and the lost bitcoin is now worth about 60k so whatever I could do to get it back.

Any advice is extremely welcome.
 

not that i know of

something is for sure going to happen to everyones phone at some point

so you should think of it as your coins are as good as nothing without the backup phrase in the future

If you have private keys or seed phrases then you can able to recover your coin by import it to some wallet (e.g. electrum)

But since you don't have any back up and loss your phone, there's no way to recover your coin... your coin was gone forever.

My advice is you need to move on and forget your coin, also don't believe any service that offer able to recover your coin.

This is the reason why I always keep my backup at my home because if my device is lost or stolen by someone I have a backup that I can use to restore for emergency purposes.

If you don't have any backup like seed and private key(already mentioned above) or a wallet file you have nothing to do unless if you have these backups.

Why not try to locate your phone if it was FRP enabled and your email is connected to this phone maybe you can use the "Locate my phone Google". Make sure that you are already login on Google before you use that keyword this is what it looks like below

https://i.imgur.com/AGSvhC5.png

Let's hope that all files still intact on the device and hope that your phone is still alive.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to recover your wallet if you haven't back up it before loosing your phone. Keeping a positive attitude at regaining your lost Bitcoin is not a bad thought, but reality might be harsh for you dear friend.

Many people have lost their Bitcoin wallets, and they have lost it for ever. Same is the case with you, and if I am not wrong you have bought the Bitcoin using your phone or you only had received the Bitcoin on your phone's wallet. That's why it is impossible to recover that wallet.

Since, you did mention you have not created any back up of your wallet therefore it will be hard for you to get access to it. The other option available for you to use the Private key which I doubt you might remember because this was an incident  that took place two years back. If you had written your Private key somewhere then still you have a chance. Otherwise forget it mate.

No need to recover the phone if you have the private keys and seed phrases with you but seems that was so long ago meaning you don't have the keys. If you enabled the find my phone feature on your device I think it is possible but if not then you will lose it forever.

There is no hope to get your bitcoin back unless you made a backup of your wallet or of a seed phrase that was given to you upon creation of the wallet. Actually, there is something iffy in your story. You said hadn't you lost your phone, you would have 60000$ now, which means you had around 1.5 BTC. Two years ago, bitcoin was worth around 4000$. So, at the time, you lost 6000$ and didn't care whatsoever. Once Elon has announced he had invested 1.5B in bitcoin, you suddenly realized bitcoin was real money or what?

I did care and tried everything I could 2 years ago. I had basically given up on the coin for the past couple years and just recently thought it might be worth it to ask the public for any advice.

I swear I wrote those down somewhere... I had a few wallets back in the day, I remember thinking I was very foolish with this one and ended up paying for it.

If your phone has the ability to be tracked via satellite, you have a chance to find it or you can give your phone box to the police so that they can find it by tracking it.
If all this does not work, you should find another copy of the same wallet and restore it with the backup key or request a recovery by giving your email to the company.
I hope these ways work.

Lost bitcoin with no private key backed up are just that. Lost forever. You reduced the total supply is what you did. Judging from your replies, i guess you are aware of that.

If you are looking for advice to somehow track a phone lost 2 years ago, then you are in fiction territory and doesn't seem like its possible. If you want the community to play detective, you should probably explain a bit more about the circumstances. Here is something to make you feel better by comparing a fellow bitcoiners' suffering. :P A guy who lost 750K BTC and knows exactly where they are. (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/20/man-lost-127-million-worth-of-bitcoins-and-city-wont-let-him-look.html)

Sadly, nothing you can do to get it back if you don't have your phone.
You're saying that you don't backup it back then, but maybe you just forget? Maybe try to check your email, cloud drive, etc that have possibility you save the backup before.
If not, then the only thing that i can suggest now is try to move on.

This is the most depressing thing if it ever happens to me, and how come OP let 2 years go by to find the phone but now is frantic to recover it, this is like a karmic cycle of not believing in the potential of bitcoin. I would suggest moving on too but I would love to add that if OP does this kind of thing again then OP should probably quit.

Since OP didn't have back up on the wallet and it was on the phone I think it would only depend on what kind of mobile wallet did OP downloaded and use at the time.
If it is a centralized wallet that would consist of personal information to log in then there is a chance but if it is going to be a mobile wallet that only log in through pass phrase then I think it would really be hard to retrieve or for me it seems impossible to retrieve it.

The wallet was bitcoin core wallet. I am in the process of syncing transactions from the last 2 years. I don't think it will work since I don't remember ever having the wallet connected to my laptop. I may have downloaded this onto my computer after I lost the phone 2 years ago with hopes of getting it back. That is interesting, I will try to contact the company with email info. I do think you guys are right that I should move on, it is probably a waste of energy. That post of the guy that lost 127million, I guess that must be worth nearly 400 million now. WOW

Losing phone that contains bitcoin wallet never be problem because retrieving your wallet is very simple if the private keys of the wallet is saved somewhere without been in the missing phone, so a process whereby the private keys stored in the phone I don't the possibility to retrieve the wallet is there, that is the reason it's encouraging to documents your private keys on our documents books in case if our laptop or phone have issues we can easily penetrate into our wallet's by using private keys.

You have lost your phone 2 years ago?
Aren't you a little bit late to ask this question?
Anything can happen in 2 years.Maybe your phone was broken.Maybe some guy had found your phone and moved the bitcoins?There is nothing you can do about it,since you don't have your private keys.
I would never use Bitcoin wallets on a smartphone device.Keeping a few thousands dollars worth of BTC in a wallet in your phone seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

You cant have it again, you should always back it up

One should always expect the unexpected and one should back up the wallet or always store the keys and seed phrase other place as well if we lost from one place so that we can access from other place. You can report in police station or ask them to track the IMEI no of your mobile but you are saying its been 2 years you lost it. Might be the person who got your mobile format the phone so I believe chances of getting your BTC is very meager.

If you have been saving the details of that wallet into another smartphone or personal computer or even pen and paper, it is still possible for you to retrieve that wallet since some of this wallet have this flexibility than can be opened from another smart device. If that happened last 2018-2019, it is still possible to retrieve that account and you really need to pour your brains in this one since most Electronic Wallet companies does not just give out the details of the owner of that wallet so I guess another thing you can do is work to gain that amount of money again and this time, you should make sure to keep your details in a place you will not lose.

maybe that is the way out that should be done by you, as this colleague also told that if only you could simultaneously save your wallet on a computer or whatever form it might be able to be recovered via another device, as long as the one who found your cellphone did not have time to use it.

because it is gone, of course there is no reason to try to work again in order to be able to produce and ensure that it will not happen the second time you do this. like the colleague above says also to keep your details in a place where they might not be lost or hacked by scams that are roaming around on social media.

nothing to do, u say cleary "I was foolish and did not back the wallet up" , so i believe u just using full control wallet apps , which mean no one will responsible about what will happen to your wallet,of course except yourself.
damn, another bitcoin will lost forever .

It is possible only if you have a back up somewhere with your private key or your seed but I think without this aforementioned the bitcoin is lost unless there is going to be a miracle somewhere waiting for you.

Although it may not have seemed like you had a lot of value on your mobile phone 2 years ago, if you say it's worth about $60 000 today - it's easy to calculate that you had more than 1 BTC in your mobile wallet. The first mistake is that you used your mobile wallet at all, and the second is that you didn't make a backup - and in the end you even lost your mobile phone - a complete disaster.

What I don't understand is that you're saying it's a Bitcoin Core wallet - it doesn't fit the story that BTC was lost along with your phone?

My advice is to try to find one of your transactions/coin addresses and thus check that BTC is still at the same addresses. Another tip is to make it public that you are looking for your cell phone lost 2 years ago and to offer a reward to whoever may have found it. You don't have to say exactly why it's so important to you - but let's say you have some photos or videos that are very important to you, or that the phone has sentimental value to you.

The best thing that you do unless you saved your wallet address and private keys to any good resources like you wrote it on a paper or saved it on something on the internet. Unless he can recover his lost phone, he can have his wallet but the sad part is, he lost it 2 years ago. That's how crypto works.

Losing your phone doesn't actually mean you're losing your bitcoin as well. You have a private key on the bitcoin wallet that you are using unless you lose that private key in your phone. If you have a backup of that private key no need to worry and you could still recover your bitcoin wallet at some point. All you need is the private key not the whole phone to open your account of bitcoin wallet. You could maybe contact the support if it doesn't have a private key or your using a custodial wallet you could still recover it.

I think it's a little bit late for you to recover that lost wallet of yours, If you are using a non-custodial wallet your only option is your backup and if you are using a custodial wallet contacting the support will have a high chance of retrieving but it happened 2 years ago so we can't expect help from them. If you know your wallet address you should better check it out first before retrieving, There's a chance that your bitcoin is stolen from you since you lost your phone.

Sorry OP but there's no way that you can retrieve it back. You've just said that you've lost the phone and never did a back up for your wallet. If you've just backed up the wallet before and even you lost that phone years ago, you will still be able to get your bitcoins back but it's not.

The important lesson which has been always being reminded by everyone here to the newbies, always create a back up for your wallet. Just in case of situation like this comes, you can have a deep breath and release and everything's gonna be fine. It's not a rare case to hear someone lost their wallets without backing it up years ago.

Yes. I agree. This kind of incident is very unfortunate and anyone did not want it to happen. You might retrieve the wallwt since it's digital by using some backup passwords or private key and seed phrase. And you can contact your phone provider in order for them to reset the phone so that the person who's gonna have it don't have any access on your things on the phone and I know that the phone itself will no ise for them. I'm sorry for your loss. It is not a joke that kind amount of money next time be sure to handle thinga very properly and don't just focus on profiting but also in securing your wallet and funds.

If you have no backup data, I doubt you can access the wallet. It is very important to back up the wallet data, how can you didn't do it? You must remember that it is a digital asset, there are too many possibilities to lose it at any time. So, back up the data on many devices or even write on paper, is a must to do. This must be a big learn for you, if still have another Bitcoin or crypto coins on other wallets, just back up the data soon.

First you should know what type of wallet you are using since there are wallets which required you to create by using email and phone number also there are wallets which have private key secured. So if you got the wallet which is email registered then you can simply download the wallet again and click the forgot password so that you can reset it and retrieve your balances.

But if you grab the wallet which needs private key but you fail to secure it then that will be total loss by now since the only thing can open that wallet again is the private key you handled before.

That's doubtful if the phone provider can ever help him retrieve those information that he needed to have. It's on his hands and the phone provider or whichever brand he has it before will decline any kind of help or will just have their empathy to say that they cannot help him in his problem.

If ever someone is still using it and picked it up by accident, they might just wipe the data on it and reset the phone. That's what usually happens when there are people who picks up a phone by accident and they don't have any plans of returning it to the owner.

Certainly, the way you feel about your lost Bitcoin now is the same way a lot of folks will feel about Dogecoin a few months now. On the advice thing, it's sad to let you know that nothing can be done about you recovering your lost Bitcoin since you don't have a backup or can't remember your private key. It may not have been stolen for the person who picked your lost phone may not even have known about Bitcoin or how to harvest it. But if none of you doesn't get it, the Bitcoin is lost forever.

Next time OP (and others too who fall into this category), always have a security lock on your phone. That way, anyone who steals your phone can't assess your vitals on it. If whoever steals your phone flashes the phone, all stored docs on it will be wiped off and that gets you assured that only you still can restore your files and apps. Also, always back up your stuff offline. Writing them down on papers will do. It's as simple as that.

Since you don't have any kind of backup, I doubt you will ever get back your coins. It's lost forever. Nothing you can do. You lost phone probably got "stolen" and the theif has highly likely wiped your phone. So even after you get back your phone, you won't get back your coins.
Don't lose sleep over it. Move on, make sure you learn from this mistake of yours, reinvest whatever you can and make sure think time you backup your wallets properly. It is never too late to start all over again!

Looking out for a 2years previously lost phone is something that is unlikely to happen or it could be possible that the phone is spoilt or have some of its hardware components crashed or expired as the case may have it. Your best changes would have been following the instruction during opening a wallet and write down your seed phrase or private key and store it which ever way you feel more comfortable and safe over. Wallet recovery is close to impossible when these vital step is not taken serious. There are several of such cases amongst us left unsolved today. Hope you learn a lesson out of this mistake and do well to take heart as you previously must have not been having thoughts of it but do try, should you see a possibility.

If you link your e-mail, contact number or any way you can retrieve your old account I guess you can get it. But really? 2 years ago? That was a long time ago and if I were you I wouldn't have much hope to get the bitcoin wallet back. Unless you still have access with the contact info you linked in your wallet. If ever you gained that bitcoin wallet back make sure that no one can access it anymore so reset your credentials.

On a different scenario, if you haven't reclaimed it I suggest you create backups and save your information in a safe place so that you won't have to worry if ever you lost your phone again.

Since more than two years have passed, the chances of regaining control over the bitcoin wallet lost along with the phone are practically zero. You always need to store data about private keys additionally in a paper version, and it is best not in one place. Cryptocurrency is very vulnerable in terms of losing access to it and this should always be remembered. Those who do not take their security seriously when working with cryptocurrency will incur material losses.

If your losing your wallet and with no back up it very stupid mistake and you will learn from that and it will made you be more carefully about your security wallet.

Since i join in this investment, i already back up more than 3 USB and Store all of my private key on my email.

So, even though i lose my phone / my phone broken it doesn't matter anymore.

No matter how you protect your email, private keys/seed are extremely sensitive information to store in this way. Email is something that is often the target of hacking, and if that happens you will lose everything you keep in it. I advise you to keep your private keys offline if at all possible, and if you already want them to be online, make sure they are encrypted.

It is really sad that you've never backup your phone, O feel you brother. I've also lost my phone way back then and didn't back up all of my necessary files including my wallet that has a ethereum that if we will convert it right now it is almost 28k but still I forget it and move on. If you can still login your email or you still know the email that has binded to your wallet and accounts then maybe there is a chance that you may recover again your wallet. But I think it would be hard for you to recover it but still hoping for you to get again your wallet. The moral lesson here is always back up your wallet and phone every time.

How unfortunate of you OP, you should've made a backup for the seed of your bitcoinwallet. That is the only thing that you can hold onto if anytuing happens to your wallet. this would be a good lesson for you, I hope you think ahead of time nexf time. But let's say you found your phone, if the phone has been reset your wallet would also be good as gone. even with a techie guy with you, it would still be pretty difficult to recover. The only thing you can do now is to learn from this mistake and make sure it never happens again.

It would be a dumb mistake if we choose to store our private keys and mnemonic phrases in the mobile phone (unless it’s auto backed up by Google Drive or so but can be hacked if no 2FA or fingerprint login). It reminds me back then of one of my phones that has sudden error with no other option but to force factory reset. But I was lucky back then because I enabled the auto save in my Google Drive, especially the private keys and phrases I have stored in some specific wallets. I immediate wrote them down in my notebook for assurance.

It is very dangerous to store your private wallet keys in your email or cloud storage. Moreover, store them in a mobile phone, which you then carry with you. In case of theft, thieves will have not only a phone, but also wallets with cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies have many advantages, but they also have disadvantages. Therefore, the portability of cryptocurrencies is not always an advantage.

Just because Bitcoin comes worth almost 60,000 that's why you are here asking this? because that time Bitcoin is really dealing with too much dump so you tend to think that your Bitcoin (I'm sure Small amount) is worthless and now it has a Value so becomes interested in claiming again?
But sad to say you cannot do anything about it unless you have back up in which you mentioned this is not in your best ways.
and even if you asked 2 years ago ? the response is the same and you cannot win them back .

so it was an old issue but i understand why you cant stand  it and post your story in here and that was because of the value of btc sitting on that phone . i believe that the amount you stored on your phone is over 1 btc judging on how you describe its total worth now , damn if that happens to me or to anyone else i think we dont know what to do , it could be that we've lost our minds now but for sure we are going to tell the same story at this forum . anyway you know what to do next , thats right dont make the same mistake

Not unless you have the recovery phrase you won't be able to recover your Bitcoin address. Well I feel sorry for you but I think you won't be able to recover it again.

So if your phone was lost two years back and you have btc stored in wallet you should have tried to recover your phone immediately at that time because two years back btc prices were still good. What's the fun of asking now?
Moreover you don't have any access to your private keys and seed phrase through which you can import your private keys to any other wallet under BIP-39 protocol like electrum, Mycelium or any other.But if you have not backed up seed phrase or private key there no other way you can have your funds back.

"Because in btc whoever have private keys he can spend the funds stored in them and by signing the transaction he is owner of funds." So there's no other way left.

Well if you were using a digital wallet, you can access it on other devices by scanning a private key or QR code to import your account. Accessing your BTC wallet should be a piece of cake if that's the case but if your private key lost together with your phone then there's no way you could access your wallet again

If he writes down his wallet's Gmail or password or any other security notebook, he can easily recover his lost bitcoin.  If he loses all of the above security systems, he will never be able to recover his lost bitcoin.

Didn't read every post, but anyway here is a list of BIP39 words that make up bitcoin's seed phrases. There are 2048 words on the list.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt

Maybe if you had a 12 word phrase (from the BIP 39 wordlist) and you had to type them in once in a while, then looking through the list could jog your memory. Obviously the more words you can remember in the correct location, or the more words you can remember in any location, or  maybe the  letter that starts a word,  the better one of those services that help crack wallets can be in helping you recover.

If you had a 24 word seed and can't remember much then it's probably hopeless.

If you have the private key or the seed then you may still recover it just log in it to another device but if you don't have then I don't think that you can still recover it, this is the disadvantage of holding bitcoin or any altcoin, if you have lost the access on your device then there is no way for you to recover it unless you have the private key. It is always that you have stored your private key in a piece of paper so if ever your phone has gone then you still have the private key, just make sure that your private key is safe.

Judging by the OP's statement, he didn't back up his Bitcoin wallet at all. So there is no way to get back the lost Bitcoin with the device he has. Unless he knows there might be a chance. That is important when creating or owning a crypto wallet we must back up all of it securely.

Don't worry if you have saved Key Phrase. or the secret key. Then  you can easily recover your wallet. But if you have not saved these keys then i think there is no way to recover the wallet. Because this is a decentralized technology, and you are the only person that is holding keys.

This is a very serious problem, I think you have lost your bitcoins for good. When creating a bitcoin wallet, you should save the private key of your bitcoin wallet or if you store it in an application and you remember the password then you can take your bitcoins back, if everything has been forgotten then you must be willing that your bitcoins are lost forever.

If you have the audacity to install sensitive information especially the coins in your mobile wallet then who is to be blamed. Anyone who is in the cryptocurrency platform should know better about storing the coins, i do have mobile wallets but i will only use them while travelling to use small transactions and i will not more than a couple of $100 in my mobile wallets.

That was already years ago and you did not try to find it when you lost it 2 years ago? I think it is already hopeless for you to find that phone or even if you found it, it has a possibility that the wallet was uninstalled already if the one who got that is not familiar with crypto. Now for your wallet, if you knew your account(password/username) and if it is connected to your email, maybe it is possible to retrieved. But if not, it is kinda sad. For now, make a countermeasure like creating a back up of your accounts especially of your wallets to avoid this kind of situation to happen again. Make a file that will contain passwords or maybe write on your notebook.

Bro, you can't find your phone again unless the person who found your phone returns it to you. but keep in mind if you have a backup code pashprase you can restore your assets. and make it experience if starting today you can copy the code pashprase on your computer to avoid the same incident

If you have private key recovery seed then you can recover your bitcoin. You lost it 2 years ago, So i think you haven’t any recovery seed. Unfortunately, I don't know any other way.

And It’s better for everyone, Don't believe any electronics device and online storage. Store your private data on a note book or in a paper.

According to your mentioned, mobile was lost 2 years ago, so why do you want a solution after long time?

there is no way to get recover without private seed. back up is important because accidentally mobile can be lost anytime.
no one can help if you did not find private key.

there's nothing you can do but give it up. You've lost it for 2 years and you don't have any private backups. it was so hard to come back. should, this is a valuable lesson for you that always back up your wallet in different places. With experiences like this, you won't repeat it.

The first thing to be done while opening a wallet is to take a diary and a pen, then safely back up the phrase, until this is done, the truth remains not your key, not your money. Nothing can be done, however, if this wallet is blockchain .com, you can just look for the login ID inside your email and input your password to proceed to fund recovering.

its really unfortunate because there is no way virtually to recover the wallet. thats why its always important to back up your seed phrase because of issues like this. aything that hold value needs to be given proper attention as well as knowing the DO"S and DONT"S so you will avoid every mistakes that will cost you like this. sorry for your loss.

IF you haven't backed it up in any way whatsoever, then I would like to break the bad news, whoever has got your phone, if he's smart enough as to not reformat or reset it, will be able to get a hold of your hard-earned bitcoins, otherwise if he's a regular dime-a-dozen guy who picks a phone up, reformats it, and then resells it, then those coins are gone forever with no way of gaining access.

Make sure your phone has been carefully secured. No one has a password and account to steal Bitcoin wallet on your phone. Immediately log in and change your account immediately to avoid bad guys using your phone to steal. Then can ask the professionals to regain your money. Good luck!

As long as you don't back up your private keys, it is unlikely that you will be able to get your Bitcoin back. This is a lesson for all of us,
because there have been many incidents that have lost their devices and in them there are private keys. It would be a good idea to always
back up your private keys in at least two places, so if anything happens we can still access our wallets. Actually, the best and safest way is
to remember the private keys, but not everyone can't do it. Therefore it is necessary to back up the private key.

You wouldn't be able to get a hold of the bitcoins inside that wallet unless you either saved up a private key or seedphrase needed to access the wallet itself, or anyway you can get the phone back. Otherwise the money is lost and no one, except for a guy who can easily access the phone with some hacking tools, would be able to get a hold of the bitcoins inside your wallet. Let this be a lesson to you on how important it is to back your wallet up by all means necessary.

2 years is a long time to remember such chaotic events.  The chances of getting your cell phone back are nearly impossible.  Even the most sophisticated smartphone will not be able to live with the greatest battery life to keep data and background applications alive for 2 years.


With this error, I am sure you will be even more careful in storing digital assets on smartphone. And the very first thing you do is back up the key first.

The incident you have been through is really awful in your part considering that you haven't backed up your crypto wallet before it got lost and it seems that you have no other ways to recover it considering that you might not be having the private key with you or you might have already forgotten where you have copied or stored it. This must serve as a lesson that always do take good care of your things if you know important files or documents are being stored in there. But you can locate your phone if you will be trying to recover such if you allow your goggle account in phone to let track once you lost it.

Hello dear, you lost your Device with your Bitcoin and on this time we know that One Bitcoin price is 50-60k usd. You said you lost your Mobile on 2 years ago and i think now you can't find your mobile.
But why you don’t save your Wallet information on any Notebook, now you understand that has a Big loss your life.           

Your previous experience about losing your Bitcoin should serve as a lesson for you to back up your wallet but since it happened again, it's really unfortunate to say that you couldn't recover your funds anymore. Just be careful and be mindful about your wallets next time especially if you're holding huge funds. You have lost a big amount due to the same reason 2 years ago, you shouldn't let the same thing happen again for the third time.

Sorry for the loss of your mobile device. Many people have lost all their crypto in the past because they forgot their password and wallet address recovery phrase.
This is a lesson for everyone, always back up your wallet to make sure you can recover your assets.
For your mobile device, the probability of retrieval is unlikely because it could be reinstalled by thieves or disassembled components for sale.

Considering the fact that you don't have any back up and it was lost two years ago, we can already say it is impossible that you will get it back. All you can do right now is regret because the bitcoin you hold on that phone has a greater value right now and you can't even cherish it. Next time, make sure to have all the sorts of back up, like private keys and such. The way you give importance to the bitcoin you are holding will reflect in the future and in times of trouble. So if you really consider it valuable, might as well do everything to protect it and make sure it wouldn't slip out of your hand no matter what happens.