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Scams · Stolen crypto

«We recover stolen crypto»: why it is almost always a lie

There are two problems that sound similar and have nothing in common. In the first, the money is still in your wallet and what is missing is the key. In the second, the money is no longer in your wallet. The first is a technical problem; the second is a crime, and technology doesn’t fix it.

October 12, 2026 · 5-minute read

The difference, in one line

Your situationWhat it is
The money is there and you can’t get inRecovery: it makes technical sense
The money left and you didn’t send itTheft: not a technical problem
You sent to the wrong addressAn irreversible mistake, not theft
You were defrauded and paid yourselfFraud: a police matter
The exchange shut down with your moneyInsolvency proceedings, not recovery

Only the first row is a recovery case. The other four aren’t solved by any tool, and whoever offers to solve them is selling you something that doesn’t exist.

Why stolen money doesn’t come back

An on-chain transfer is final: nobody can reverse it. You can see perfectly well where it went — that information is public and free, and anyone can look it up — but seeing is not being able to move. Moving that money would require the thief’s key, and no service obtains that.

That is where the industry’s trick comes from: they show you a pretty report tracing your coins and charge for it as if it were progress. You can produce that report yourself for free on a block explorer, and it doesn’t bring you one metre closer to recovering anything.

The few cases where something does happen

To be fair, there are genuine exceptions, and it is worth knowing them to see that none involves hiring someone who messages you privately:

  • The money reaches an exchange that identifies the account holder and a court order freezes it. Police achieve that, not a private service.
  • An international investigation dismantles a network and victims get a share, years later.
  • The attacked project negotiates with the attacker and returns part of it. Nothing to do with you hiring anyone.
  • It was your own mistake sending to a known platform, and that platform can help through its own process.
None of those routes starts with a private message or an advance payment. They all start with a police report. If you were robbed, report it and keep all the evidence; it is the only thing that can be of any use. And brace for the second scam attempt, which almost always comes: see I was scammed trying to recover.

Why I say it so plainly

Because I don’t do that and I want the line clearly drawn. I work the first case: the money is where it was and what is missing is the key. If your case is a theft, I tell you on day one, free, and I don’t charge you for a report you can produce yourself.

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