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1  Economy / Service Announcements / Re: Bitcoin Wallet Recovery Services - for forgotten wallet password on: November 22, 2022, 01:20:39 AM
Hi, Dave!

I've been reading a lot of great things about your work, and I'm unfortunately in need of your services.

I've used my Trezor wallet once last year, had gone through the initial set-up, did a test transfer, and proceeded to stash all of my coins into it. I didn't know that it was going to be my downfall. I really do not remember ever being asked to enter a passphrase during the initial setup. I've been trying to recover it with my best efforts but to no avail.
 
I know that being a new member on this forum can easily make people dismiss my case, but I can provide proof of my claim. I am just someone who made a really awful mistake. I was quietly HODLing my BTC, hence why I was never really active on forums. The purpose of me posting this is to also have some sort of documentation of this process, whichever way it might go. I would like to offer you more than 20% of your required fee--I'm pledging to give you 4 BTC if you ever do recover it.

Hoping to get a response from you soon.

Thanks and stay safe.

Hi Splashboard, I'm happy to help.  I've sent a response to your follow-up email.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I've responded to your e-mail. I am hoping for the best outcome here.

Good luck to us both.

Thanks


I'm here with an update! Dave really, truly is the magician that everyone claims he is--it hasn't even been 4 hours when he emailed me with the good news. I was so stup1d and careless. More importantly, he is an honest and trustworthy person. It leaves me in awe how he's so dedicated to his work, and preserving its integrity. Just wow. I'm proud to say I'm one of the people he has saved (from financial ruin, in my case).

As I have pledged, Dave was paid the 4 BTC he was owed. Much deserved. For what it's worth, you have my respect. I will also name my next child after you. This community is very lucky to have you.

I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

To everyone else, hope you never have a brush with death (Passphrase of Death as I call it).
2  Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Re: Passphrase of Death (Bounty in BTC) on: November 22, 2022, 01:08:12 AM
Yes, that's correct so far. A year ago I set up my Trezor, generated the seed, created a PIN, did a test transfer, and proceeded to transfer more (used change addresses generated by the wallet, around 7 tx). Before I closed everything and disconnected my Trezor, I looked at my Trezor Suite dashboard for a considerable amount of time and it was displaying all the coins and transfers I have made correctly.
Just to confirm if you’ve actually used a passphrase or not. When you first set up your trezor, did you pick the "standard wallet" or "hidden wallet" option?

If you’ve picked the hidden wallet option, then it required you type in an additional line of text.

You said that between having the coins on your trezor and the loss of the coins you did a software update. You can try to set up your trezor from scratch and insert your seed phrase to see if it is some kind of software error.
Also you can insert the seed in a normal computer wallet but I don’t know which one is the right one for that kind of seed. Best would be to use an offline machine for that.
You might want to update your op with new information you've written below but just to clarify the things you know:
1. Addresses (I'm assuming it's not just txids and you know the addresses that belong to your wallet - or at least one).
2. Nmemonic
3. Pin

Do you also know what sort of password you've picked? As long as it's not a 13+ string of random alphanumeric characters, it might be crack able (even if it's the full 35 characters but made up of words). A lot of wallets do the generation stages slowly for randomness, the algorithms used to derive addresses are very fast in comparison.

Have you tried using the start of your nmemonic as the passphrase in case you were looking for something to test out the feature? Or a password you use in a lot of places.

Also did you generate the wallet with trezor software? Wallets like electrum didnt ask you to confirm your password in the past so there's a chance there could be a simple spelling mistake you've overlooked (even if you made it on trezor suite, you might be less likely to spot caps lock if it was enabled for both password inputs).

I'd like to thank everyone for sharing their insights! They're all very much appreciated.

I'm very glad to come back here with actual findings and results as to what really happened. I will edit my original post accordingly, and hope that it will save others from going through the same thing.

After trying BTCRecover on my own and with the forum's suggestions, I failed to recover the password. I realized that it's beyond my knowledge and ability so I've decided to look for a wallet recovery service. I had my recovery seed phrase, and I made a password list of what I could have possibly entered as a passphrase (the same list I used for BTCRecover but apparently my configurations came up short). The service I used was Dave's WalletRecoveryServices and he managed to unlock the wallet in just a few hours. So to sum it up: I really did enter a passphrase and I just didn't remember or write it down because I thought I could recall it from memory--it was really a facepalm moment when I received the password from Dave. It wasn't a typo of any sort. It was not a Trezor firmware update issue/hardware issue. It really was just a grave human error, with a lot of carelessness and complacency. Never again. I hope.

Please don't forget your passphrase, or it can lead to an early, painful demise.
3  Economy / Service Announcements / Re: Bitcoin Wallet Recovery Services - for forgotten wallet password on: November 21, 2022, 11:38:36 AM
Hi, Dave!

I've been reading a lot of great things about your work, and I'm unfortunately in need of your services.

I've used my Trezor wallet once last year, had gone through the initial set-up, did a test transfer, and proceeded to stash all of my coins into it. I didn't know that it was going to be my downfall. I really do not remember ever being asked to enter a passphrase during the initial setup. I've been trying to recover it with my best efforts but to no avail.
 
I know that being a new member on this forum can easily make people dismiss my case, but I can provide proof of my claim. I am just someone who made a really awful mistake. I was quietly HODLing my BTC, hence why I was never really active on forums. The purpose of me posting this is to also have some sort of documentation of this process, whichever way it might go. I would like to offer you more than 20% of your required fee--I'm pledging to give you 4 BTC if you ever do recover it.

Hoping to get a response from you soon.

Thanks and stay safe.

Hi Splashboard, I'm happy to help.  I've sent a response to your follow-up email.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I've responded to your e-mail. I am hoping for the best outcome here.

Good luck to us both.

Thanks

4  Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Re: Passphrase of Death (Bounty in BTC) on: November 21, 2022, 10:34:58 AM
Embarrassingly, yes this is the only time I'm accessing the wallet again after initially setting it up and transferring funds into it. I didn't feel the need to test a restore prior to transferring funds as the set up had to make me enter the recovery twice.
I appreciate this is maybe rubbing salt in the wound, but for future, after you generate a new seed phrase and back it up, you should note down the first address in the wallet you have created before wiping/resetting everything and recovering from your written down back up, to ensure you made no mistakes and you can indeed regain access to the same wallet.

I'm 100% certain that it's the right seed. I've only used it that one time. I've only gone through the setup once, so I only ever generated one set of recovery seed, which I had written down on three sheets of paper.
In which case, if it is definitely the correct seed phrase, and you've tried accessing it via Electrum at all the possible derivation paths, then it does indeed seem as if you have mistakenly set a passphrase.

I have a lot of experience using btcrecover, so can talk you through creating a tokenlist file to widen your search if it comes to that.

That is definitely warranted and this has changed how I look at securing things in general.

Thank you so much, that is such a generous offer. I am quite beaten down from trying and I am not confident enough that I'll be doing the right configurations since I wasn't able to crack it with my best-guesses password list. I've been thinking of reaching out to wallet recovery services, since I'm sure they're much more equipped and knowledgable than myself.
5  Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Re: Passphrase of Death (Bounty in BTC) on: November 21, 2022, 10:24:39 AM
Also, please tell me if this makes sense, if the Trezor firmware update messed it up, wouldn't restoring it to a different wallet (in Electrum, Exodus) show the funds if they were really there?
Correct.

I could run it again and do as you suggested
You could also try other standard derivation paths, such as m/44'/0'/0' and m/49'/0'/0' just in case your Trezor Suite really did something weird.

Is this the only time you have tried to access the wallet? Have you tried to access it and been successful previously? And I take it you never tested your restore process prior to sending funds to the wallet in the first place?

How certain are you that your seed phrase is correct? There is no chance that you could have reset the Trezor or generated a second seed phrase at some point?


Yes, thank you for that suggestion. I'll try those different derivation paths since I've already set up BTCRecover.

Embarrassingly, yes this is the only time I'm accessing the wallet again after initially setting it up and transferring funds into it. I didn't feel the need to test a restore prior to transferring funds as the set up had to make me enter the recovery twice.

I'm 100% certain that it's the right seed. I've only used it that one time. I've only gone through the setup once, so I only ever generated one set of recovery seed, which I had written down on three sheets of paper.
6  Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Re: Passphrase of Death (Bounty 4 BTC) on: November 21, 2022, 10:03:10 AM
I am a bit confused when you say you used change addresses. Did you transfer your coins to normal receiving addresses on your Trezor or to change addresses? It's the first time I hear about change addresses being displayed on a Trezor or Ledger software. You can see them in Electrum, but not in the native hardware wallet apps if I am not mistaken.

Maybe your firmware update messed something up. Again, I am unfamiliar with the workings of a Trezor and the "check seed phrase feature", but since you are certain you have the correct seed written down in multiple places, you could try to uninstall and reinstall the Trezor Suite and reset your hardware wallet to factory settings. After that, use the backup from seed feature, enter the correct seed, and see if that will bring everything back to normal.

Sorry, what I meant is that I had 8 different transactions made to my Trezor wallet, and all with different addresses--Trezor gives me a fresh one after using the previous. You're right--I did not see a list of them like you can in Electrum.

Yes, I am 100% certain about having the correct seed as it is the only set I've ever generated from my Trezor. I have tried to uninstall, reinstall, open it on another computer, and have restored it to factory settings, but to no avail. Also, please tell me if this makes sense, if the Trezor firmware update messed it up, wouldn't restoring it to a different wallet (in Electrum, Exodus) show the funds if they were really there?

Right, so assuming everything you have said is accurate - set up Trezor, sent coins to it, saw the coins on it, next time you plugged it in the coins were missing, seed phrase is correctly backed up, seed phrase is correct on the Trezor with the check seed function - then it does indeed seem you have the correct seed phrase but have opened the wrong wallet.

There are three possibilities here. The first is you set a passphrase and do not remember doing so. A passphrase can be any combination of letters, numbers, or symbols. Perhaps you mistakenly thought you were setting a password for your Trezor Suite software. You could try any common passwords you frequently use, or you could also just try " " (i.e. a space) in case you did something like this by mistake. Your next option would be attempt to bruteforce the passphrase using software such as btcrecover, but if you have absolutely no idea what the passphrase is and it is anything more than a few characters, you will never find it unforunately.

The second possibility is that you have somehow ended up on the incorrect derivation path. I've not used Trezor Suite in years, so I don't know if this is possible, but for this I would pair your Trezor with Electrum and cycle through common derivation paths to see if you find anything. The standard derivation path for bc1q addresses is m/84'/0'/0'. I would try m/84'/0'/1' and keep incrementing the last number a few times to see if you find anything.

The third possibility I'm not sure about, but you said you used change addresses? It might be that Trezor Suite is not displaying the change addresses since you haven't used the receiving addresses yet. If you open your Trezor with Electrum, that should solve that issue.

I would explorer the latter two options first since they can be resolved/excluded in a few minutes, whereas bruteforcing a passphrase could take years.

Yes, I think after all the troubleshooting, it leaves me with entering a passphrase and just don't remember doing it. I've tried the usual passwords, scoured through my saved passwords, tried variations of them, using a space, but they all report an empty wallet.
I tried opening it with Electrum and Exodus, both by connecting the hardware wallet and by using recovery seed phrase. Both show me nothing.

Before coming here, I used BTCRecover with any and all passwords that I could think of, all the typo configurations that it offered (at least, all that I knew how to utilize). I tried both with the standard --bip39 configuration and other test runs using the derivation path m/84'/0'/0' but only incremented it up to m/84'/0'/1', I could run it again and do as you suggested. Thanks very much everyone for your insight and patience.

7  Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Re: Passphrase of Death (Bounty 4 BTC) on: November 21, 2022, 09:32:42 AM
Try to provide more information first.

So you have a Trezor Model T. You set up your HW, generated a seed, and sent bitcoins to one of its addresses. Is it correct so far?
Have you checked and confirmed that the address on your computer is correct and matches the one displayed on your hardware wallet?

What happened next?
Did you try to recover your wallet from seed and when you did the wallet was empty?
If the wallet is empty, does it show any transaction history? If you check on a block explorer, are the coins still in the address you sent them to?  

How do you know that a passphrase is required?
Have you written down your seed properly and you are 100% certain of the words? Is it possible that you misspelled something?  

Hi, sorry about the lack of information outright.

Yes, that's correct so far. A year ago I set up my Trezor, generated the seed, created a PIN, did a test transfer, and proceeded to transfer more (used change addresses generated by the wallet, around 7 tx). Before I closed everything and disconnected my Trezor, I looked at my Trezor Suite dashboard for a considerable amount of time and it was displaying all the coins and transfers I have made correctly.


Three weeks ago, I needed to take some funds from the wallet. I updated the firmware since I figured it's been almost a year since I've used the desktop suite. What happened next is I plug in my Trezor, successfully entered my PIN on the first try, and I am greeted with an empty dashboard. There is nothing on it, no balance, no transactions, no activity at all. Yes, the coins are still unspent and in the same addresses I transfered them to--I have a watch-only wallet for them.

Once I realize that my funds are lost, I immediately went to check my seedphrase if I'm on the right wallet or if my data has been wiped. I went through the check seed function of the Trezor, and it's the same exact seed as the one I had initially saved. It's on three different sheets of paper that I have written the seed on, and they all match, and it's the same seed that was loaded onto my Trezor.

In addition to this, I restored my wallet on Electrum and Exodus using my seed phrase, and I found nothing.

I only ever found out about hidden wallets and passphrase when I read up on the support page and forums of Trezor. The general message I got from all the things I read there is if the seed is right and your funds are not there, it's not the right wallet.

8  Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Re: Passphrase of Death (Bounty 4 BTC) on: November 21, 2022, 09:08:00 AM
Is there a chance that maybe you've deposited your coins in the past on addresses starting with 1 and now your (recovered?) wallet has addresses starting with bc1? (if you don't know, the year could be a clue)
Maybe it's not about the hidden feature, if you've never used it?

I don't think that's ever been suggested before, not even on the Trezor forums! That's very interesting. I'm basing off of the TX IDs I have from the hot wallet I was using to transfer funds from, and the receiving addresses all start with bc1q. So, I guess that means it's really the hidden feature?
9  Other / Off-topic / Re: Getting up and having positive hope on: November 21, 2022, 09:00:16 AM
Recent turn of events has pushed me out of my comfort zone. I realized how long I've been stuck in a rut--not growing, never changing. It does me no good if I keep regretting my actions in the past. The only thing one can ever really do is to keep moving forward.
10  Bitcoin / Hardware wallets / Passphrase of Death (Bounty in BTC) on: November 21, 2022, 08:49:48 AM
Hi, all!

I'm using a Trezor Model T. Anyone else dig their own grave with the hidden wallet feature? I swear to all that is holy, I was never asked to enter one during initial setup. I've lost all my coins and it's hard to recover from such a huge loss. I'd like to know if anyone has gone through a similar hardware wallet problem and successfully recovered theirs using recovery tools/services?


I really, really, f*cked up. I know that being a new member on this forum can easily make people dismiss my case, but I can provide proof of my claim. I'm offering bounty for successful recovery. Any suggestions/recommendations, please?

(I'm not sure where to inquire about trusted services offered here. Sorry mod if this isn't the right place! I'm still finding my way.)

Thanks and stay safe!

EDIT: In conclusion, I forgot that I ever put in a passphrase. It was not a Trezor problem. I f*cked up BIG time. WalletRecoveryServices saved me. This forum is A+++

BTC
11  Economy / Service Announcements / Re: Bitcoin Wallet Recovery Services - for forgotten wallet password on: November 21, 2022, 08:39:04 AM
Hi, Dave!

I've been reading a lot of great things about your work, and I'm unfortunately in need of your services.

I've used my Trezor wallet once last year, had gone through the initial set-up, did a test transfer, and proceeded to stash all of my coins into it. I didn't know that it was going to be my downfall. I really do not remember ever being asked to enter a passphrase during the initial setup. I've been trying to recover it with my best efforts but to no avail.
 
I know that being a new member on this forum can easily make people dismiss my case, but I can provide proof of my claim. I am just someone who made a really awful mistake. I was quietly HODLing my BTC, hence why I was never really active on forums. The purpose of me posting this is to also have some sort of documentation of this process, whichever way it might go. I would like to offer you more than 20% of your required fee--I'm pledging to give you 4 BTC if you ever do recover it.

Hoping to get a response from you soon.

Thanks and stay safe.
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