← All articles
First aid · Checking
How to check if your funds are still there without risking anything
The registry recording your coins is public. That means you can see whether your money is still where you left it without getting into the wallet, without giving any password and without risking anything at all.
What you need: an address
Just that. One of your addresses from that wallet, which is public information and can’t spend anything. If you don’t have one to hand, it usually turns up in one of these places:
- The withdrawal confirmation email from the exchange you sent the money from.
- An old screenshot of the wallet.
- The transaction history of the platform where you bought.
- An email or message where you gave it to someone so they could pay you.
- The wallet itself, if you can open it but not move funds.
How to look it up
- Open a well-known block explorer, typing the explorer’s address into your browser yourself.
- Paste your address into the explorer’s search box.
- Look at the current balance and the date of the last movement.
- If there are outgoing movements, look at their dates: they will tell you when the money left.
The important part: at no point are you asked for a password, a phrase or anything private. If a site claiming to be an explorer asks for any of those, it isn’t an explorer. An explorer only reads a public registry.
How to read what you see
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| A balance and no outgoing movement | Your money is still there. There is something to recover |
| Zero balance and an old outgoing movement | It moved that day. You may have spent it yourself |
| Zero balance and a recent movement you didn’t make | Theft: go and secure whatever is left |
| An address with no movements at all | It was never used: check another address |
| The address isn’t found | It may be on another network: try the matching explorer |
If you get the third row, change priorities immediately: stop looking for how to recover access and go to what to do if you think your phrase is compromised. The urgent thing is protecting whatever is left in other wallets.
Why do this first
Because it changes the whole conversation. If there is a balance, you know the effort is worth it and you also have proof the wallet is yours. If there is nothing, you have just saved yourself weeks of searching and possibly a good deal of money paid to someone who would have charged you to search anyway.