Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone,

I accidentally deposited USDT to an ETH wallet, and according to etherscan.io, the deposit was made successfully, but the balance appears as ERC-20 token, not ETH. Given this situation, are there any ways for me to recover the USDT or reverse the transaction?

I use Gemini, and there doesn't seem to be a way for me to create private keys or recovery phrase.

I am new to cryptocurrency, so any help on this is appreciated. The Gemini customer support has been radio silent with the multiple inquiries I sent.

Thank you!!

Unfortunately, the only way to recover your USDT from Gemini is through their customer support, it can't be reversed nor recover through a non-custodial wallet since you can't get the private key of your deposit address.

Here's their recovery policy & other info:

• Will Gemini return digital assets sent to the wrong address? (https://support.gemini.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000035186-Will-Gemini-return-digital-assets-sent-to-the-wrong-address-)
  
• User Agreement: Unsolicited Transfers (https://www.gemini.com/legal/user-agreement#section-unsolicited-transfers)
  
• Where can I find my private key? (https://support.gemini.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005860066-Where-can-I-find-my-private-key-)

.
As stated, it's in their discretion whether they will return the assets to you or not.

Considering the number of users who are probably contacting them due to the "bull run", I can only suggest you to wait and not send too many requests for them not to see it as spam.

You have the same case with this user posted on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Gemini/comments/jpkbtm/erc20_tokens_in_eth_wallet_on_gemini/) 4 months ago, even the amount is huge as $23k, Gemini didn't recover it even though they can, technically.

I can only say sorry for the loss and I hope the amount lost from you isn't big enough.

As the USDT you sent is an ERC-20 token (otherwise the transaction would not have gone through), I think it is possible to solve your problem.

But as nc50lc said, the only way to recover your USDT is by Gemini support.

Your coins are there, but to recover them it might cause a security hassle for them.

Do you have a USDT (ERC-20) wallet in your Gemini account? Some exchanges share the same ERC-20 token address and ETH addresses. If this is the case, it is possible that once you active your USDT ERC-20 address, your coins are recognized by the exchange. Just look for your deposit address for USDT ERC-20 address, it might be the same as your ETH address

As far as I know Gemini don't support or have never listed USDT in their exchange. They have GUSD (Gemini USD) instead. This will make it even harder for OP as they will claim they don't support the coin like the many cases I have seen before

There's no way you can recover your coin so far as the transaction is successful, beside, do you know the private key of the recipient address, I mean does the recipient address comes from the compatible erc20 wallet not an exchange, if it's accessable then there's possibility of recovering your USDT.

This isnt the only case about mistakes of sending out wrong address. Cases like this do exist.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KrakenSupport/comments/lh2v2h/usdt_sent_to_eth_address_accidentally/
https://www.reddit.com/r/KrakenSupport/comments/j3xyuf/sent_usdt_to_my_eth_wallet_at_kraken/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7o2nic/accidentally_sent_eth_to_a_btc_address_is_it_gone/

Most like when it comes to recovery then you would need to contact on the platform on where those coins sent in to.
They are the only ones would able to recover that.

Thank you everyone! So it seems like I can only wait for Gemini to contact me (if they ever contact me)...?

I read somewhere that because USDT is a form of ERC-20 token, I was holding out some hope that Gemini could help me recover USDT, but it doesn't sound like that would be the case...

At this point, I can only hope that Gemini will respond to me at some point. How many days in between should I wait to follow up with them so they don't treat my emails as spams?
I have contacted them 4 times in 7 days, but I was pretty desperate and didn't know that there was a "bull run."

Also, for those of you who have used Gemini before, did you find it more helpful to contact them via email or the form on their website?

Thanks again for all your advice! This community is great.

Have you sent them a request using the support page already?
I mean the "Submit a Request" button on the upper-right side of the support page.
If not, try to use that.

Also, it's best to send a single email and wait for their response, unless it's already a week/month.

Yes, I've tried sending them a request through the support page. Because they didn't respond to that, I also emailed them directly. I will keep the weekly follow-up in mind.

Thanks for your help!

Had you tried to reach them by any other methods? There Facebook and Twitter contacts. Try to reach them via these social media. But be careful, don't share your wallet credentials with anybody. Even wallet authorized shouldn't ask you for your wallet credentials. There is no other way to recover your funds except the help of the Gemini support team. That's the disadvantage of using a web wallet or noncustodial wallet. So, you have to wait for their response.

By the way, many scammers would PM you to recover the wallet. Just use the report button in case it happens. Anyone want to help you really then he will reply here on the thread.

Wait atleast for a week before making the another request if there was no support for them because normally they say the customer support will give response in 3 to 5 days but due to the bull run it can be extended more. But don't let the coin go away without trying because in some cases exchanges returned the funds which was wrongly deposited so if you have luck then it may possible.

Since both USDT(ERC-20) and Ethereum share the same deposit Eth address, they have access to your deposited USDT and since they don't officially accept USDT as deposit the only way is to contact their support, and if for whatever reason they refuse to fund your account it only means they don't want to but they most definitely can.

I did not have any experience with Gemini and not sure how long does it take them to answer support tickets but I hope you get your funds back, usually reputable exchanges refund you in similar cases but don't know if Gemini care as much about their reputation.

Hi all,

I would like to provide an update on this.

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for your encouragements and support throughout this process. Without your advice, I would be so devastated by my mistake and not be able to move on to contact Gemini.

After following up gently (aka once-weekly follow-up), the Gemini team was able to work with me to help me recover USDT. According to them, because USDT is a type of ETH token and per their smart contract, they were able to recover USDT if I deposited a small amount of ETH to the address that I accidentally deposited USDT to. This would activate that incorrect address, which had helped their wallet team recovered the amount.

This is not to say that all requests or incorrectly deposited assets can be recovered by the Gemini team, but I still want to encourage you all to try. If you try, you won't always get the result you want. But if you don't try, you will never get the result you want.

Some tips on following up with the Gemini team:
1. Wait patiently - My first contact with them was during a bullish period, so their reply was definitely slower than expected
2. Be persistent - Once weekly follow-up seemed to have worked since they didn't treat my email as spam
3. Be polite - If you are polite with customer service, they will be more willing to help you too

I hope that if you found yourself in my shoes or in similar situations, you will get to recover you asset!

Glad they granted your request.
BTW, I think the small amount is for the gas fee instead of "for activation" since sending out your USDT will require a transaction fee.

You are probably right. I am surprised that gemini wasn't able to send their own ETH to pay for the gas, and take a portion of the recovered token as a fee that could pay for the gas. 

I am glad that you issue got sorted out. I really like how you got back here and gave an update of how everything worked out alongside a few tips. This will help some people in the boat in future when the look-up this thread.

I have also gotten to know that the Gemini team can help in such cases unlike most exchanges that don't even bother to help

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It's probably because of accountability. Gemini don't support USDT so taking a small portion of USDT in order to recover coins that were never supposed to be sent there in the first place didn't seem sensible to them

Hi, I have the similar issue.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5329770.0

What do you think about of it, May I get my bitcoins back ?

Thanks.

Practically it's possible, but your biggest hurdles right now are both the Poloniex support (to accept to return the coins to the sending address) and Binance support (to accept funding your account once poloniex send Bitcoins to the address of their hot wallet)