Dormant blockchain.com accounts?

[bartekjagoda]

There seems to be a lot accounts setup at blockchain.com and blockchain.info with the passwords lost.

What happens with the bitcoin after a few years, does their support siphon the coins?

I mean they have the wallet IDs and wallet backups in JSON format together with email addresses, but if a person loses the mail associated with the wallet then BOOM, your coins are gone. A friend of mine has been trying to recover a long lost password since 2013, a big chunk of coins, but since his mail provider went out of business he has no way to request a backup wallet.

Anyone in similar position?

[1715075911]

1715075911

[NeuroticFish]

What happens with the bitcoin after a few years, does their support siphon the coins?

From what I know they don't have access to any means to access users' coins. At least that's what they claim.
So the answer would be: the coins are lost forever(*)


(*) unless somebody will generate again corresponding private keys in his wallet, although there may be a bigger chance to win the lottery every week-end for a year

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Anyone in similar position?

Yes, and it's funny you should start a thread like this.  One of my first wallets when I got into bitcoin was a blockchain.info one--this was before I learned not to use web wallets.  I was a complete noob at the time and I wrote down the password and some other thing they gave me, and I lost the paper in the notebook in which I'd written it and I don't have a clue how to regain access to that wallet.

Luckily I think I only had about 10k sats in the wallet, so it's not a big deal but I did try to log into the wallet a few times in the past year but couldn't.  Oh well.  And the only reason I had that dust in there was because at the time I was using blockchain.info the network fee was higher than 10k sats or whatever I had in there.  No biggie, thank goodness.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Assuming that what NeuroticFish has said above is true and blockchain don't have any way of accessing users' wallets (nobody knows if this is true or not), and they don't have any way of resetting passwords or any logs regarding the seeds/seed phrases/private keys that they generate, then those coins are essentially lost for the time being. However, presumably at some point Blockchain could start to bruteforce the passwords of dormant accounts, if they wanted. They know all their users' Wallet ID (since these are included on any emails they send you), and running bruteforce attacks on their own servers would be very quick. Furthermore, as with most passwords, I would bet that a high proportion of users are using non-random, poorly secure, and relative easily bruteforced passwords.

An address collision or someone bruteforcing seeds or private keys will essentially never happen.

[bitmover]

Theoretically , a dormant blockchain.com is just a dormant address.
I believe many of those dormant may even be holders

But certainly, it is better to move your coins somewhere else, just in case they can access the seeds (or some hacker gets into their system and Rob everyone)

[BitMaxz]

I have a blockchain wallet before I don't know if it has a balance I just can't remember because I was newbie about bitcoin and I use their wallet for claiming free faucet rewards. I want to open that wallet but the problem I can't remember if where I save the JSON file backup on my PC tried to search it the whole HDD with some tools but still can't find it.

I only have a backup email and password where you can log in to blockchain wallet but since they don't require email these days I can't access the wallet. So my wallet is lost forever I don't have any outgoing transaction from this wallet I'm sure I collected a big amount of faucet rewards before.
That was my mistake when I was a newbie so I realize to use a desktop wallet instead to have full control of my wallet.

[Kyraishi]

I'm pretty sure the old blockchain.com worked in a way where it was basically a portal for users to access their own bitcoin wallets, and you got a generated seed and private key if you wanted, to import your bitcoin if you wanted.

As everyone else has said, I'm pretty sure they don't have access to your private keys/bitcoin (but I could be wrong), so it's just been lost, although there might be a situation where they siphon lost funds after certain years of inactivity...

Interesting post.

[aioc]

What happens with the bitcoin after a few years, does their support siphon the coins?

From what I know they don't have access to any means to access users' coins. At least that's what they claim.
So the answer would be: the coins are lost forever(*)

Could be a big amount if there are thousands of users who lost their passwords, forgot that they have an account here, just two months ago I was searching on my folders and I found out I have another blockchain, info account I'm using for my airdrops, I opened it and discover I have 100k satoshi, how many users here that forgot about their account like me.

[beerlover]

From what I know they don't have access to any means to access users' coins. At least that's what they claim.

This is something that I must need to consider because I have some big number of addys in my wallet there and most addys are having payments received from faucets. As the value of bitcoin is too low, I never thought about moving them but I have back up of all my private-keys. As I "own" my bitcoins, I was thinking like I am not having any problem but now I realize I may go wrong if they are somehow able to access my privatekeys.

(Just 2 weeks back, I checked my wallet using their recovery link (https://login.blockchain.com/wallet/forgot-password) and got busy with my routine works. It is really hard life from my end. You guys believe or not, I have not claimed BCH for my bitcoins yet (Now, it has turned as BCHABC and SV)).

Anyone in similar position?

Definitely there could be hundreds of us. But, some may have privatekeys but most others might not have taken bitcoins serious then and after seeing bitcoins around $10k may think about digging and ending up clueless. Bitcoin must be treated seriously so that you will learn every safety measurements to protect it. Otherwise losing them due to unable to access or ending got hacked might be a result.

[Steamtyme]

They've always stated that if you lose the password you lose the funds they had no access to or way of recovering your password or funds. I know I used to try and remember what my password, whenI ame around and became actively involved in BTC. Looked through all my old work books and every scrap of paper I could find, no luck.  I used it as a 1 off to buy a small amount and make a purchase, stupid me I just moved on with my life forgetting about BTC until I saw it a few years later making big moves in price. Can't remember what's there anymore might have been something like .03, maybe more maybe less. At the time I didn't consider it significant enough to care about  

There are always going to be losses of BTC and coins that will never be recovered, just the nature of Bitcoin. The key is trying to educate people how easily it can happen.

[joniboini]

Even if they could steal your bitcoins, I doubt they're stupid enough to do that. Imagine how it will affect their business and consumer trust. Sure, they can simply brush it off by saying "we don't steal it, maybe somebody cracks it", but I don't think they'll go full Mt.Gox.

What's more concerning is how you can prove that the one who 'steal' the money is really them. It's nearly impossible to do it, which is why I don't really like custodial or semi-custodial wallet.

[nydiacaskey01]

I still have access to my old Blockchain accounts that I dont use anymore and it still have the private keys the pass phrase however, I don't open it, it only have dust left in there. Blockchain will not touch it unless they change their terms of conditions for dormant accounts with less than 0.0000xxxx BTC will be closed and give owners ample time to move their funds somewhere else.

[magneto]

There seems to be a lot accounts setup at blockchain.com and blockchain.info with the passwords lost.

What happens with the bitcoin after a few years, does their support siphon the coins?

I mean they have the wallet IDs and wallet backups in JSON format together with email addresses, but if a person loses the mail associated with the wallet then BOOM, your coins are gone. A friend of mine has been trying to recover a long lost password since 2013, a big chunk of coins, but since his mail provider went out of business he has no way to request a backup wallet.

Anyone in similar position?

Can you even request a wallet backup via mail? I'm fairly sure that you aren't able to do that.

Blockchain.com insists that they don't have any role in keeping private keys, so if they were to be sending out wallet backup files via mail, wouldn't that be essentially holding private keys for the user? That's quite self contradictory imo.

Anyways, afaik support will not take your case and the only hope your friend has will likely be brute-forcing or somehow using existing clues to try and guess the password. At least he has the wallet-id.

[mobnepal]

Blockchain will not touch it unless they change their terms of conditions for dormant accounts with less than 0.0000xxxx BTC will be closed and give owners ample time to move their funds somewhere else.

I dont think they will ever do that other than incase they lost the json files associated with every user account from their server which is quite unlikely.

Also when we have passpharse from blockchain can't we just move our addrress to another wallet provider?

[gentlemand]

Even if they could steal your bitcoins, I doubt they're stupid enough to do that. Imagine how it will affect their business and consumer trust. Sure, they can simply brush it off by saying "we don't steal it, maybe somebody cracks it", but I don't think they'll go full Mt.Gox.

The moment it happened they would have the world jumping down their throat. I have no doubt it has piled up into a significant amount of coinage by now, but there's also the age old thing of coins not moving not automatically meaning they're 'lost'.

Some day some service somewhere will announce a policy along these lines. It'll be a right old mess no doubt.

[Patatas]

From what I know they don't have access to any means to access users' coins. At least that's what they claim.

You're totally correct there. I have followed several events on their blog and they have managed to raise good investments from venture capitalists with a legit team that doesn't hide behind the shady domains. Having access to user funds will not impress any investors to put any money on the start-up as they know the market evaluation will drop drastically if someone with the lost password claims their coins have been moved.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Also when we have passpharse from blockchain can't we just move our addrress to another wallet provider?

You can't "move" your address anywhere.

If you have your seed phrase from blockchain.com, you can import your private keys and therefore your addresses to another wallet. This does not "move" them, however. Although you would have access to your coins via your new wallet, you would also still have access to them via blockchain.com. If you goal is to ensure blockchain.com no longer have the potential to access your coins, then the only option is to send all your coins in a normal transaction to an address you control elsewhere.

The moment it happened they would have the world jumping down their throat.

Just playing devil's advocate here, but how do we know it hasn't already happened? There are endless stories of people having their blockchain.com accounts hacked and losing their coins. How do we know this wasn't blockchain.com stealing coins from their users? As with all web wallets, you are relying on trusting a third party.

[1Referee]

I have followed several events on their blog and they have managed to raise good investments from venture capitalists with a legit team that doesn't hide behind the shady domains. Having access to user funds will not impress any investors to put any money on the start-up as they know the market evaluation will drop drastically if someone with the lost password claims their coins have been moved.

Venture capitalists make wrong investments too, so their confidence in a project or business they invest in isn't by definition an indication that it's all safe and sound. In fact, a lot of venture capitalists (including Tim Draper) have lost millions of dollars investing in token projects, where most of these projects were very questionable to begin with.

People don't need blockchain.com for anything nowadays. They are way better off simply installing a mobile client such as Electrum where you for sure know that your funds are safe and ONLY controlled by yourself (obviously assuming your device isn't hacked). No matter how 'safe' blockchain.com is said to be, I will never trust them and I don't have to. I am my own bank.

[Potato Chips]

Blockchain.com insists that they don't have any role in keeping private keys, so if they were to be sending out wallet backup files via mail, wouldn't that be essentially holding private keys for the user? That's quite self contradictory imo.

Well, storing wallet files regardless of whether they have access or not is as good as holding private keys for their users, at least for me.

Your encrypted wallet is automatically backed up to our servers. To safely store your wallet, we add another layer of security by encrypting your wallet a second time. Securely storing your wallet on our servers ensures that you can access your wallet from any (and all) of your different devices.

@op, from what I know, back then, the password can be obtained through the mnemonic (if your friend still has that) tho I heard blockchain.com today has a bad compatibility with the old accounts, still worth a try.

[keychainX]

There seems to be a lot accounts setup at blockchain.com and blockchain.info with the passwords lost.

What happens with the bitcoin after a few years, does their support siphon the coins?

I mean they have the wallet IDs and wallet backups in JSON format together with email addresses, but if a person loses the mail associated with the wallet then BOOM, your coins are gone. A friend of mine has been trying to recover a long lost password since 2013, a big chunk of coins, but since his mail provider went out of business he has no way to request a backup wallet.

Anyone in similar position?

Can you even request a wallet backup via mail? I'm fairly sure that you aren't able to do that.

Blockchain.com insists that they don't have any role in keeping private keys, so if they were to be sending out wallet backup files via mail, wouldn't that be essentially holding private keys for the user? That's quite self contradictory imo.

Anyways, afaik support will not take your case and the only hope your friend has will likely be brute-forcing or somehow using existing clues to try and guess the password. At least he has the wallet-id.

Yes, you can do this in two steps.

1) go to login https://login.blockchain.com/#/reminder
there you type in the e-mail that registered the wallet.

2) you can request backup json file

With your "ideas" you can extract the hash with john and then brute force with hashcat.

Works like a charm

/KX