No solution · Exchanges
Why a closed exchange account cannot be recovered
A self-custody wallet is opened by a key. An exchange account is opened by a company, and if that company won’t or no longer exists, there is nothing technical to do. It is a legal or administrative matter, and knowing that saves months down the wrong road.
The four scenarios
| What happened | What route exists |
|---|---|
| You forgot the password or 2FA | The company’s own recovery procedure |
| Your account was frozen | A complaint to them, then legal action or the regulator |
| The company wound down in an orderly way | Their fund-return procedure, with deadlines |
| The company went bankrupt or vanished | Insolvency proceedings: years, and rarely 100 % |
| It was a fraudulent platform | Report it. Technically there is nothing to recover |
Why a technical service can’t help
Because on an exchange you never had a key. There is no password to rebuild and no file to open: there is a database on someone else’s server recording a balance in your name. Accessing that without the company’s permission isn’t a recovery, it is a computer attack, and nobody serious will do it or offer it.
What you can do
- Gather all the evidence you had funds there: screenshots, emails, bank statements of deposits, purchase confirmations.
- Check whether an official procedure is open and by when you have to come forward. Insolvencies have deadlines and missing them is final.
- If an insolvency administrator or liquidator has been appointed, register as a creditor.
- If it was fraud, report it and keep everything. That is what allows cases to be grouped.
- Don’t pay anyone promising to speed up any of these processes.
And the lesson for afterwards
What is on an exchange depends on a company. What is in your own wallet depends on you. Neither option is perfect — one can go bankrupt and in the other you can lose the key — but it is worth choosing deliberately rather than by default. See self-custody versus exchange.