Millions of Ether Remain Unclaimed in Presale Wallets

As he attempts to retrieve a hard drive containing 7,500 BTC from a landfill, a Welshman has endured a nine-year battle. According to a long-standing statistic, four million Bitcoin - about 20 percent of the total supply - have been lost forever. Most of it was mined when the network was just beginning, with early adopters tearing their hair out after losing their private keys. The value of over 500 Ethereum presale wallets is several billion dollars, but they have yet to be recovered. There are other treasure troves worth exploring besides this one.

Back in the summer of 2014, ETH - now the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world - went on presale. In those days, you could buy 2,000 Ether for 1 Bitcoin. Now, 1 BTC only fetches 12 ETH at the current exchange rate. Experts believe hundreds of wallets remain unopened despite a massive 8,893 people participating in this presale.

Some wallets contain tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of ETH. Several owners have more than 10,000 ETH in their accounts, which means they are missing out on a life-changing $20 million.

All of this raises the question: Are these wallets doomed? Are these funds just irretrievable now that Ethereum is moving from a Proof-of-Work to a Proofof-Stake blockchain? Moreover, who in their right mind would lose access to their crypto after participating in a presale?

Back then, crypto was shiny and new - and many early investors were still figuring things out. Presale wallets' private keys can be lost for a variety of reasons. A browser issue might have caused the problem, difficulties with foreign language keyboard settings, or poor

security practices. What should owners of these presale wallets do? Tell people about how you missed out on millions of dollars at dinner parties or fight back and reclaim their rightful share of the wealth. Do you give up and dream about what might have been?

Presale Wallet Recovery

There is a way to do it. To begin, go to Etherscan, a blockchain explorer, and check the balance of the address you are trying to retrieve. There may still be crypto left to be claimed - in which case, and It's time to take a step back and consider what your wallet password requirements would have been.

The next part is a little more challenging. If you can, try to recall the passwords that you commonly used in the past. By changing letters like an a, and using special characters like & and # instead of letters like a and a, Hashcat can test many variations. Two hundred thousand passwords can be checked in a second using the right GPU card.

You may think this is a long shot - and there is still a chance you will not be able to find the password to your Ether presale wallet. The good news is that you don't have to give up. Next, it's time to hire professionals with a track record of unlocking codes and reuniting owners with their crypto.

Forgotten presale wallets often have specific parameters, and KeychainX has developed software that successfully recovers lost cryptocurrency. Over 200 people have entrusted KeychainX with recovering millions of Ether, Bitcoin, and Dogecoin in the last 12 months.

Proof

An Ethereum enthusiast contacted KeychainX after amassing 1,000 ETH for just $300 during the Ether presale. Currently, this crypto sum is worth $2 million. One problem arose: the customer thought the wallet was corrupt. The password was clear to him, but he ran into two problems: first, he was half French, meaning he might have problems decrypting foreign characters. Also, the password was sexual, making it necessary for the project's specialists to find phrases that could be tested. Secondly, the password was 99 characters long. His wallet's special characters were translated into Cyrillic by KeychainX. In addition, tracking down the customer and delivering the good news took three days. Aside from recovering long-lost crypto, this project aims to prevent investors from ending up in a similar position. Using geolocation data and biometrics, it stores private keys in a keyless crypto wallet patented in the U.S. and Japan. Furthermore, it plans to launch an automatic crypto recovery site that will allow people to use their extra GPU power for social recovery.

At the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Canada, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explained how Web3 could provide a more effective approach to recovering accounts than Web2. Using this example, users might nominate five recovery contacts, including their father and a friend, as well as two institutions and one employer. An account could then be unlocked by three of these trusted sources.

Crypto losses can be devastating, but projects like KeychainX aim to prevent them in the future.