Bitcoin Forum

Hello. I have logged on to my electrum wallet to find out 0.5 btc was transferred to an unknown wallet and my wallet is empty.

I havent found an email for Electrum support, only a link to these forums.
How should i proceed?
Is there a chance to retreive the money?
Looks like my phone was hacked.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Sorry to burst the bubble for you, but bitcoin transaction is irreversible, so there's no chance that you can get back your bitcoin. Yeah, that seems to be the case, your phone might have some kind of malware, got your password or your 12 seed phrase, that's why the cyber criminals were able to stole it from you.

It's unfortunate, big and expensive lessons to learn.

Electrum does not have a support centre, and what kind of forum link do you have? They do even not have official forums.

There is nothing you can do, your BTC is lost. What can you proceed furthers is to take a lesson and learn about basic security practice. Storing your assets on your phone is never a good idea, it opened up to many attack vectors, not until you comprehend and practising a secure way to store it on your phone.

By all means, Did you sure you installed the Electrum wallet from their official website (https://electrum.org/#home)? You said you have their forum and use the word "logged on", Electrum wallet is an application, by the word you used, I assume that you opened it up from a website, huh?

Only thing you can do is found out how you got hacked and learn from that. That lesson costs you 0.5btc and it's pretty expensive lesson for not bothering learn anything so i advice you to at least take that time to find out what happened. You aren't getting your btc back by the way.

The loss can be as a result of:

1. Your seed phrase is known to someone and the person can access your coins by knowing your seed phrase. This can be as a result of online attack or malware that makes your wallet vulnerable to hackers and your seed phrase is revealed to them, or it can be someone that got access to it where you back it up offline, never trust your seed phrase with anyone, it should remain to you and you alone.

2. It can still be as a result of someone that was able to access your device, know your wallet password and use it to just access your device directly and stole your coins.

You have to be careful of malware, making sure your device is free from malware, also making sure you properly backup your seed phrase in a way it is protected from both online and offline attacks.

If there has been a payout and you are not the owner of the address, then you have no chance. Sorry. You should reset your phone and check all your private accounts.


That’s right. This is a great loss and the only thing that can help you is to learn from it and the rest is taken by Karma.

Yeah, you're hacked.

Do you remember if you have downloaded something or an application that you have to enter the seeds of your wallet through that? Because that's probably what happened to you when it has required you to type it.

We're sorry but no way to retrieve that huge amount of your btc, you should've bought a hardware wallet for it.

You could file a police report. You also need to find out how your coins were stolen so you can take action if other sensitive or valuable accounts or data are at risk.

Unlikely. Your best bet would be if you can track the stolen coins to a centralized exchange and then get law enforcement involved.

Possibly. Or you download some malicious app or malware. Or more likely you were careless storing your seed phrase. How and where did you store it? Electronically?

everyone talked about the possibility of malware or some hacker, but have you ever stopped to think about the possibility that your friend or relative who knows about bitcoin, how to use bitcoin very well, have used your phone without your knowledge and have stolen all your bitcoin? think about it if didn't have anyone used your phone. in my opinion someone close to you used your phone and stole you

It's back up by the private key and seed phrase there's no email associated or phone numbers on Electrum because they aren't centralized wallet so, therefore, sorry for your loss, and since Bitcoin transfer into another wallet which is you didn't have a control to it are totally lost.

Contact Chainalysis (https://www.chainalysis.com/) service that has offered tracking the lost Bitcoin or hacked Bitcoin so that you can trace where your Bitcoin landed and possibly reveal the real hackers, but I think they had a huge service fee for this.  Unfortunately, it's an irreversible transaction which means a small percentage being recover.

The phone is prone to hack you should aware of this from start.  It isn't a good idea to store Bitcoin on phone, we have a hardware wallet for you to store your large amount of Bitcoin hold.

In that case, you should be aware that there's a possibility that your phone was internally breached from any of phishing activities. We should be careful with clicking unknown email from someone who's a stranger because hackers eventually use it as a way to access your security.
You should get rid of this in the future, just move on we can't recover what you've lost much better you accept it and take as a big lesson.

Shouldn't you have been well informed before having such amount in your wallet? You are supposed to be cautious of websites you visit, be careful of where you store your seed phrase, be careful of what tabs are open when you are recovering your wallet, are the apps in your device trusted? and every other methods to maintain that privacy. At least you understand that it is not from Bitcoin but your fault. Sorry for your loss though, cause that's a lot of money. :'(

You can go around checking that wallet to which it was sent - on any block explorer or just search engines. Very likely the hacker would have sold away those coins to some exchange. If so you could contact that exchange too. This can help in filing the police report to get information about the hacker's possible location.

Electrum has no control over the people using their wallets. Only the user who is owning a wallet should do the needful to secure it.

Depending on where you live, this will differ, but the first step would be to seek law enforcement.

If you are hoping to reverse the money back - there is no chance. Once the money has been sent, it is gone and nothing you can do from your side. But legal help can get your somewhere if you can catch the hacker.

Possible, is the phone your only device to access the wallet? You should also make sure not to install apps from third part sources and keep email attachments and all away from your device's storage - these are common sources of malware.

Was the seed phrase written somewhere? It is possible this has ended up in the wrong hands because that is the only way your wallet can be accessed by a hacker.
Hoping to see your reply. Indeed new users should first secure their devices and learn methods to avoid hackers first before starting to receive money.

Exactly, that is gonna be most expensive lesson of all time. I mean losing the whole 0.5 btc in a blink of an eye is worst experience and one can feel how bad it must be feeling to OP right now.  :-[

As pointed out by @Charles-Tim there is only accessibility to your device which could have caused the transfer of your btc. There is no way someone can hack your device remotely and if they did then they will need tremendous efforts to do. For example, though someone gets access to your phone then they could just open your apps, read your emails, send texts etc. However, almost all of the apps no a days has security check. They will still need your passcode to enter into your app. If they do somehow then they will still need your transaction passcode to authroize the transaction.

Moreover, when the phone is being used that way you should literally see the screens moving isnt it?

Going far from this, let us consider that they went into your app with pass phrase then they will need one physically or by some means. Since mnemonic phrases are not stored anywhere on your phone there is less chance it was hacked.

when it happens like that, we can not do anything. Therefore, what must be done is to be careful in storing our private key phrases or wallets, and never follow web orders that are not clear, because it is only a disappointment at the end and we cannot sue the authorities in my country

I think nothing you can  do about it to recover or retrieve the btc, because someone also misplaced the seed phrase and his coin was moved to another Wallet and since the incident happened he was enable to recover the coin up till now, the aspect of hacked, it's very obvious that system can be hacked but what really causes this problem is when you are sharing a system with somebody, so the possibility for your secret codes to be review to another one is there, so i will encourage you to abstain from sharing system with somebody, I'm just explaining from experience because it has happened to me because of exchanges of system.

Transferring asset in crypto is irreversible, as  you mentioned I think you got hacked and for the final answer you cant get it back no matter what. This is a hard and costly lesson, you should be more secured in this kind of situation specially when big amount of money is involved.

This is one of the disadvantages of being your own Bank....

When you deposit your money into Electrum, you take your money matters into your own hands.. there are no insurance or "Support" that can retrieve your lost money or pay you for your losses. (Well good luck getting money back from a Bank, when your online Banking was hacked or your Credit card stolen)

If you are lucky... the thieve might have been a newbie and he/she did not use any Mixer service ..after he stole your coins. You can then track the coins on the Blockchain ..in the hope that you might identify the receiver. (Casino / Exchange / Service)  ;)

We wanted to help you in recovering your stolen Bitcoin but unfortunately, we can do nothing with that as these hackers will surely never think about giving it back to you.

If your keys or your login credentials are stored there, that comes possible.

But you know what? These hackers are getting smarter, you can't just underestimate their capabilities and I know they are untraceable so even reporting it to the authorities the chances of getting them are very slim to nothing. I don't tend to put you down but that is the reality.

These days the malware attacks on the mobiles were very low. Someone has accessed your mobile device when you aren't available. If not it is impossible to make a transaction from electrum wallet. As mentioned, someone has stolen it and finding the person following any of the footages seems to be the end decision.

Name: Mykushla
Posts: 1
Activity: 1
Merit: 0
Position: Newbie
Date Registered: October 09, 2021, 07:46:21 PM
Last Active: October 09, 2021, 09:16:37 PM

strange that you have not done more post even having posting a serious problem here on the forum, in situations like yours the person is desperate for help and therefore would be active answering everyone in this thread. at last i hope you somehow found out what happened so that your coins disappeared

There have been many members that gave responses, hopefully, OP can be here soon.
Btw firstly, so sorry to hear that.
But, once the Bitcoin stole, it cannot be turned again, moreover, if they are hackers/ someone who gave you malware, or even someone who really want to steal your Bitcoin.
There are some possibilities, moreover, if someone else knows exactly your electrum data.
I know that losing it is very bad, feeling sad, and also it is very pity to lose 0.5BTC, but once more, you cannot have that again

At first maybe sorry for your loss, but people is right if you maybe better to let it go, although you know where it goes you can't retrieve it back especially if the hacker already withdraw the money from exchange. I think it is better to change everything and clean everything in your system and make all more secure then.

I'm sorry for loss, man. It makes me really feel sad every time somebody becomes a victim of this kind of attack. 0.5 BTC is already a significant amount. It would have been an amount which calls for a cold wallet or a hardware wallet instead of a hot wallet.

The lesson is that you should take security very seriously. Never risk. You shouldn't compromise your Bitcoin's security. Never store seed phrase in your phone. And once your phone is holding a wallet containing a large amount of money, be extra careful of what you download, browse, click, etc.

The hackers must have had access to your device and wallet in one way or the other. It might have been through an information that belongs to you, and for sure it is going to be through your twelve word phrase. And the problem with bitcoin transactions is that they cannot be reversed and I have not seen anyone that was able to reverse a bitcoin transaction, once the transaction moves it has moved and you won’t be able to do anything about it unless you know the owner of the recipient address, then you can tell them to send it back.

You getting it back depends on whether they are ready to send it back or not. Now in a case like yours, you don’t know the recipient, sadly you can’t do anything about it. Just try to be careful next time and store your coins the right way and avoid dropping information about yourself and wallet online.

Can you please share more details about your story? And just curious after made the went offline and never come back. Fund transferred from the electrum wallet means it has gone forever since Bitcoin is an irreversible cryptocurrency. Sharing the true story would help others to prevent a hacking attack, at least some other users could take a lesson. Usually, there is no chance to get back the fund, but legal authorities could help you if they can trace the address where the fund was transferred. If an attacker use mixer then likely nothing is going to happen. And one more thing please don't respond to someone if send a PM to help then you might being scam once again. Because scammer would ask you for funds or wallet credentials.

Unfortunately, software wallets aren't secure enough for storing such significant amounts of money, especially if your device has an outdated version of OS installed. Despite the fact that there is a secure element inside your device that is a perfect solution for hiding your secret keys, it doesn't protect you anymore once your wallet is unlocked. A software wallet, once unlocked with a PIN, starts to manage your secret keys in plain text, which means any skilled hacker can intercept that information without any hassle. You must have mentioned somewhere that you had a lot of bitcoin, that may have attracted the attention of the malicious actor that later somehow got access to your phone using hacking tools.

There is no chance to retrieve your money, blockchain doesn't have customer support and transactions are final once confirmed.

Sorry for your loss mate, because there's no way you can recover it, its impossible even you contact the support because it's not their job to keep secure your private information, maybe there are some features for hacking but when it comes to your seeds or log in info they're out of it, wherein it's your job to keep it secured not them.. For sure you'll receive a lot of notification how to keep your wallet very secured if you contact them as it's very impossible to recover once it was transferred to another wallet. 

I would like to offer my condolences on this, unfortunately you will never get 0.5 BTC back and you will lose it forever. Chances are you have used and downloaded malware that infiltrates information data and it can read your password and 12 seed phrases which is why there are so many warnings about it. Cybercriminals who steal their money from malware are becoming more and more common these days. Recently a friend of mine faced the same thing but he used NFT AXIE game wallet and had all his SLP stolen.

Come to think of it, 0.5 BTC is not a small amount of money, that is over $28500 if bitcoin price is at $57000. There is possiblity that he may not get back his coin, especially if the attacker is making use of decentralized or direct p2p for transaction without involving himself in centralized exchanges. But, why the person (the victim) not try to make use of wallet explorer to search for the address to know if the address belong to an exchange, very possible it belongs to certain exchange. If the address belong to certain exchange, there is possibility that the attacker can be tracked down.

I am not sure whether Electrum wallet have a support or not, but if they do have a support I don’t think they are going to be able to solve an issue like this, because first of all their wallet is a decentralized wallet unlike centralized wallets where your money is in custody of the company, for decentralized wallets you’re in control of your wealth and not the company managing it for you.

And you do know that bitcoin transactions can’t be reversed in this case, so contacting them wouldn’t really solve this kind of issue, unless you know who owns the address that the coins were sent to and you can decide to trace them.

Electrum wallet has no support, but this forum is more than a support for Electrum wallet users. If anyone has anything to asked, it can be asked on this forum.

What if the owner of the address is an exchange, I mean if the address belong to an exchange and given to one of the exchange users which is the attacker? If the address as been used for some transaction in the past, it can be traced on wallet explorer.

If the Mykushla can include the address to OP or just post it here, we can do the tracking to determine if the address is an exchange address.

Nope, that cash is gone. Except if the electrum team removed it, then you can get it back. My reason for saying if it was from the Electrum was because of a recent experience I had with a wallet ap. I had transferred a certain amount of USDT to a buyer on a ...wallet (name intentionally withheld) The transfer went through and was seen on the blockchain. But the USDT was instantly moved out of the wallet to another wallet, not by the dude I transferred it to. It was the roqqu team that removed the cash. It wasn't a funny experience. However, it was resolved when the dude wrote the wallet support. It was then we discovered the team removed the cash. It was refunded within a few minutes later. The sad thing with OP's case is the supposedly lack of support from Electrum. If a company doesn't have a support team how does one write to them in terms of emergency then?

Does malware also affect phones like it affects PCs and laptops?

It can affect any device that can connect online, especially the ones people use more often like Android (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/android-malware-tries-to-trick-you-heres-how-to-spot-it/) and iPhone (https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apple-mobile-devices-under-threat-from-new-acedeceiver-malware/) are more targeted by attackers. These malware can be rear, but that does not mean it is not possible until someone realizes something has already gone wrong on his phone. Nevertheless, I do not think malware like adware should be rear on phones with the numerous ad pop-ups phone users are exposed to.

As long as you are using the real version of electrum, that's impossible.
Electrum wallet is open-source and we all know that developers have no control over your fund.

As already said, electrum is open-source. Anyone who has knowledge to understand the code can assist the users. That's why this forum is a good place for asking questions related to electrum.

Unfortunately, there's none, only electrum faqs (https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html) can be the guides of newbies/new user and ask the community for basic and tecnical help.

Knowing op asks email support of electrum, I assume he's new to this idea as well which is so unfortunate.

Looks like he's referring to the link on Electrum's official twitter:

https://i.ibb.co/4VRbCX4/58166027.png

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Or you can also try asking in the #electrum channel on Libera Chat (https://web.libera.chat/#electrum).

I guess that OP only registered on Bitcointalk to get help with this issue of his stolen bitcoins. Seeing that most of the comments are about Bitcoin being irreversible and that the coins are unlikely to be returned, he probably doesn't feel like continuing the discussion and answering other people's questions.