bitpay app

I uninstalled the bitpay app and reinstalled it on my phone. I cant find my wallet. Is it gone? i dont have the 12 word phrase. Sad

Quote from: PJevenflow on February 04, 2021, 03:12:24 PM

I uninstalled the bitpay app and reinstalled it on my phone. I cant find my wallet. Is it gone? i dont have the 12 word phrase. Sad

If you don't have a backup, it's gone. Your only chance is file recovery, I've never tried that on a phone.

my payment was in receiving mode for hours. that has never happened before. i thought it was an app issue so i uninstalled it. i didnt think id lose the wallet. ooops. i have the address my payment went to. does that matter?

Quote from: PJevenflow on February 04, 2021, 03:28:23 PM

As told by LoyceV if you don't have any backup you can't recreate the wallet. You can't just recover it with just an wallet address.

Hope you don't had that much left in it.

Quote from: PJevenflow on February 04, 2021, 03:28:23 PM

i have the address my payment went to. does that matter?

No. Anyone can have any address. Is there a reason why you don't have the 12 words?

i use bitcoin for payouts from sports betting. i withdrew 500 from my betting account to my wallet. i usually transfer the bitcoin to the debit card. so i lost 500. Sad

. i have another wallet which i saved the 12 word phrase. i never needed it. lesson learned!

I'm sure they always verify first that you noted or save the 12 words seed before you proceed on creating the wallet on the app.

Are you sure that you lose your seed?

I hope that you read this "How to create a wallet in the BitPay Wallet app"

They always inform users to backup seed so it's impossible that you forgot where you save the words seed?

i probably accidentally threw it away. i had it written down. i didnt know uninstalling the app would cause this. i do remember seeing something about backing up. something about a password.

Then sadly, there is no chance for recovery. The 12 words recovery phrase is the key to recovering your wallet... without it, you have zero chance of recovering that wallet. Data recovery on mobile devices is not "impossible", but it is generally more difficult than attempting it on a desktop pc or laptop.

You'd definitely need to stop using the device immediately... and most probably need to take it to a data recovery specialist... however, their costs are likely to far outweigh the $500 worth of BTC that you're attempting to recover. Undecided

Quote from: HCP on February 04, 2021, 10:43:05 PM

Data recovery isn't worth that $500. I recently checked those prices to restore data from a computer and that was already much more then that. For a mobile device it will be 2x/3x so not worth to try.

Maybe he know someone who could try it for him but chance is very low that it will succeed.

Quote from: ETFbitcoin on February 05, 2021, 09:54:23 AM

It's still worth if he's betting Bitcoin price will rise significantly in future.

Yes that it is but if the price to recover it will be $2000 Bitcoin have to rise a lot to recover that costs and then he is still even.

And it's also not sure if they can recover it. They will still charge you the hours even if they not succeed.

Quote from: ETFbitcoin on February 05, 2021, 09:54:23 AM

--snip--

It's still worth if he's betting Bitcoin price will rise significantly in future.

If he's betting on a price rise, he's much better off taking the amount of FIAT he'd have to spend on a company that would recover his data and exchange this amount to BTC directly... He'll end up with more BTC in his wallet than if he'd pay such a company >$500 to recover $500 worth of BTC

It's the same argument from miners i've seen before: some miners used to keep on mining at a loss (just electricity-wise, not even writing off their hardware), because they were betting on a price increase... Instead, they should have turned off their ASIC's and invested the money they were going to spend on electricity by buying BTC on an exchange... This way they would have had more BTC in their wallet than if they'd continue to mine...

Quote from: WoopDeBoop on February 05, 2021, 10:27:07 AM

now I think it is a bit weird that these 12 words are the keys for everything right they should create more options to change it

I personally don't think it's weird...

You either have to save your wallet.dat (for example, bitcoin core). If you lose your wallet.dat (or your passphrase) you lose your funds.

Or you save your actual private key (for example, older paper wallets). If you lose your private key, you lose your funds.

Or you save a seed phrase (for example, most SPV wallets). If you lose your seed, you lose your funds.

Or you trust somebody else, and you forget the old saying "not your keys, not your coins".

Only the last option doesn't require you to be your own bank, this requires you to trust a thirth party for 100% and goes against the very core of bitcoin... There is no middle ground, being your own bank means you have to make sure you're in controll of your own private keys... So yes, this also means you have to make backups of wallets, make copy's of paper wallet or have to write down your seed phrase...

"Be your own bank"

This also implies:
"Be your own bank's IT department"
- You need to make sure you have the correct "IT infrastructure and systems" in place to make Bitcoin work for you. That means making some smart decisions around Operating System, choosing a wallet application, whether you need/want paper wallets, hardware wallets, air-gapped cold storage etc.

"Be your own bank's CyberSecurity department"
- You need to be diligent around your computer systems. It is insanely easy to steal cryptocurrency compared with stealing from a bank. If someone gets a keylogger, clipboard jacker or other malware on to your PC/mobile device, they can literally steal your crypto in seconds! Be smart about what you do with your pc/mobile device... make backups!

"Be your own bank's Security department"
- Slightly different from the CyberSecurity department... you need to make sure your stuff is "physically" secure... your computer/hardware wallets/paper wallets... and of course, your backups! You have those right? Oh... wait Undecided

If you're trusting someone else to be your bank... maybe you'd be better off with an actual bank? Huh

Quote from: PJevenflow on February 04, 2021, 06:30:40 PM

i didnt know uninstalling the app would cause this. i do remember seeing something about backing up. something about a password.

You must have been used to apps where every files is saves up in the cloud or back up into an account that is why you have this assumption well this is your mistake since Bitcoin wallets don't do this kind of thing. Even if you are using a custodial wallet after you have uninstalled the app and re-installed it again your account won't be automatically log-on and even you even have to re-validate your device for its permission. That's why most of the wallets I know will always give you a warning/notice that you need to always keep your 12 word back up phrase just in case these kinds of things happen. So the next time you will be doing this again you should now get the 12 word back up phrase of your wallet before uninstalling it.