Hackers help people with lost crypto-wallet credentials recover their accounts and digital assets. Although the process is strenuous and sometimes unsuccessful, these hackers still try.
According to crypto-research firm Chainalysis, of the 18.9 million bitcoins in circulation, up to 3.7 million have been lost by their owners.
One of the hackers helping people restore their accounts is the father-son combo Chris and Charlie Brooks (Crypto Assets Recovery).
Chris and Charlie use computers to try out hundreds of thousands of possible login ID and password combinations and believe their strategy could help recover 2.5% of bitcoin worth more than $3.9 billion.
Another ethical hacker in this area is Joe Grand. Grand has made a viral YouTube video showing how he cracked open a hardware wallet containing $2 million.
“When you break a crypto-wallet, I mean when you break any security really, it feels like magic no matter how many times you do it. Even though I had proven multiple times in my tests that I could hack this wallet I was worried on the day because you never know what’s going to happen and we only had one shot or the whole thing could break and the coins would be lost forever. Cracking the wallet open was a huge adrenaline rush. I guess it’s like a technical version of treasure hunting,” Grand explained.
For more information, read the original story on the BBC.